Vaccines Against Urban Epidemic Arboviruses: The State of the Art

Abstract

Arboviruses represent a contemporary global challenge, prompting coordinated efforts from health organizations and governments worldwide. Dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses have become endemic in the tropics, resulting in the so-called "triple arbovirus epidemic". These viruses are transmitted typically through the bites of infected mosquitoes, especially A. aegypti and A. albopictus. These mosquito species are distributed across all continents and exhibit a high adaptive capacity in diverse environments. When combined with unplanned urbanization, uncontrolled population growth, and international travel-the so-called "triad of the modern world"-the maintenance and spread of these pathogens to new areas are favored. This review provides updated information on vaccine candidates targeting dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. Additionally, we discuss the challenges, perspectives, and issues associated with their successful production, testing, and deployment within the context of public health.

Keywords: emerging arboviruses; mosquito-borne infections; public health; vaccine development.

Figure 1

The global distribution of Aedes aegypti (pink) and Aedes albopictus (sandy brown) based on the VectorMap repository. The red (Indian red) dots indicate overlapping occurrences, with country boundaries shown as solid black lines. The colors used to designate the distribution of the vectors were obtained from the open-source library matplotlib (https://matplotlib.org/, accessed on 19 February 2025) in Python.3.12.2. Additional information is provided in the Supplementary Materials [15,16].

Figure 2

Autochthonous transmission identified for dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses and their respective overlap areas. The map was generated using the free tool MapChart 5.11.0 [34] and constructed based on the literature and government reports [35,36,37,38,39,40]. Note that the prevalence is not uniform within each country and may vary according to factors such as climate, geography, and the region’s vector ecology.

Figure 3

Schematic representation of the genomes of dengue (A), Zika (B), and chikungunya (C) viruses, indicating coding genes, untranslated regions (UTRs), open reading frames (ORFs), genome sizes, the taxonomic genus, and approximate diameter of the viral particles of each virus, as described in [54,55,56] for dengue, Zika, and chikungunya, respectively. The gene colors were chosen for visual purposes, and the difference is not significant. Between the ORFs of CHIKV, there is another UTR sequence: the junction region (J).

Figure 4

Live attenuated vaccine constructs for dengue (A), Zika (B), and chikungunya (C) viruses. The genomic components of each virus are represented using colors, along with the presence and location of known attenuating mutations. YFV—yellow fever virus; JEV—Japanese encephalitis virus; IRES—Internal Ribosome Entry Site.

Figure 5

Poor sanitation and housing conditions typically found in the Brazilian big cities’ outskirts. The images are from Recife, a To3.7-million-person metropolitan city located in Northeast Brazil. (A) A canal heavily contaminated with sewage and trash near a 60,000-seat soccer stadium; (B) young boys and horses that live near the canal; (C) a five-month pregnant woman resting on the canal bank just a few meters from a pile of trash; (D) clothesline drying on the canal bank; (E) housing conditions in a slum (favela in Portuguese) located on the canal bank; (F) water containers used by a nearby restaurant to store water; (G) open sewage and trash in front of a kindergarten (colored building); (H) a canal heavily contaminated with untreated sewage and boats used for navigation by local people.

Figure 6

Percentage of people across the world with access to safely managed sanitation (2020). Data source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation (processed by Our World in Data) [168].