Journal Article

Searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack: advances in mosquito-borne arbovirus surveillance

Ritchie, Scott A., Ramírez, Ana L., van den Hurk, Andrew F., Meyer, Dagmar B.

2018

Overview

Surveillance is critical for the prevention and control of mosquito-borne arboviruses. Detection of elevated or emergent virus activity serves as a warning system to implement appropriate actions to reduce outbreaks. Traditionally, surveillance of arboviruses has relied on the detection of specific antibodies in sentinel animals and/or detection of viruses in pools of mosquitoes collected using a variety of sampling methods. These methods, although immensely useful, have limitations, including the need for a cold chain for sample transport, cross-reactivity between related viruses in serological assays, the requirement for specialized equipment or infrastructure, and overall expense. Advances have recently been made on developing new strategies for arbovirus surveillance. These strategies include sugar-based surveillance, whereby mosquitoes are collected in purpose-built traps and allowed to expectorate on nucleic acid preservation cards which are submitted for virus detection. New diagnostic approaches, such as next-generation sequencing, have the potential to expand the genetic information obtained from samples and aid in virus discovery. Here, we review the advancement of arbovirus surveillance systems over the past decade. Some of the novel approaches presented here have already been validated and are currently being integrated into surveillance programs. Other strategies are still at the experimental stage, and their feasibility in the field is yet to be evaluated.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Aedes aegypti / Animals / Antibodies / Aquatic insects / Arbovirus Infections - epidemiology / Arbovirus Infections - transmission / Arbovirus Infections - virology / Arboviruses / Arboviruses - genetics / Arboviruses - isolation & purification / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Biomedicine / cold chain / cross reaction / Cross-reactivity / Culicidae / Culicidae - virology / Detection / Diagnostic systems / Disease Outbreaks / Entomology / Epidemics / Feasibility studies / Gene sequencing / Health aspects / High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / Honey-based surveillance / Humans / Infectious Diseases / infrastructure / Laboratories / Medical research / Methods / monitoring / Mosquito / Mosquito Vectors - virology / Mosquitoes / Next-generation sequencing / Nucleic acids / Outbreaks / Parasitology / Preservation / Review / Saccharides / Sampling / Sampling methods / Sentinel animals / Sentinel Surveillance / Sequence Analysis, DNA / Sugar / Surveillance / Surveillance systems / Tropical Medicine / Veterinary Medicine/Veterinary Science / Virology / Viruses / Warning systems