Autophagy and viral diseases transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus

Abstract

Despite a long battle that was started by Oswaldo Cruz more than a century ago, in 1903, Brazil still struggles to fight Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, the mosquito vectors of dengue virus (DENV), Chikungynya virus (CHIKV) and Zika virus (ZIKV). Dengue fever has been a serious public health problem in Brazil for decades, with recurrent epidemic outbreaks occurring during summers. In 2015, until November, 1,534,932 possible cases were reported to the Ministry of Healthv. More recently, the less studied CHIKV and ZIKV have gained attention because of a dramatic increase in their incidence (around 400% for CHIKV) and the association of ZIKV infection with a 11-fold increase in the number of cases of microcephaly from 2014 to 2015 in northeast Brazil (1761 cases until December 2015). The symptoms of these three infections are very similar, which complicates the diagnosis. These include fever, headache, nausea, fatigue, and joint pain. In some cases, DENV infection develops into dengue hemorrhagic fever, a life threatening condition characterized by bleeding and decreases in platelet numbers in the blood. As for CHIKV, the most important complication is joint pain, which can last for months.

Keywords: Aedes aegypti; Autophagy; Chikungynya virus; Dengue virus; Zika virus.