This will change international travel forever

Dengue Fever has long been one of the most difficult and wide spread viruses around. It has been found in tropical and sub-tropical environments in places like Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific, India, parts of Asia and South America for many years and is one of the most high-risk health complications when travelling to any of those destinations. There has not been a vaccine or a cure for dengue fever, but this may change after a recent discovery by Australian scientists.

The discovery, announced in the journal, Nature Immunology, shared that the team of Australian researchers lead by Oxford University identified a previously unknown class of antibodies. As dengue fever is a virus, it is constantly changing and modifying itself, but this study seems promising in potentially preventing and fighting many strains as the antibodies were found to be capable of neutralising all of the four stereotype viruses after screening blood samples from seven patients.

This may also mean that these antibodies give us power to control the virus in the mosquito hosts. Our results provide a path to a sub-unit vaccine against dengue virus, and have implications for the design and monitoring of future vaccine trials,” the paper says.

Around 400 million people are living with dengue fever every year and many of these are travellers who visit a foreign country on a holiday or working in regional and remote areas only to contract the virus and fall ill.

Dengue sufferers only gain immunity to the variant they have experienced, leaving survivors vulnerable to repeat bouts from the other three strains. These subsequent cases can be ­lethal because the immune ­response they trigger helps escalate the infection.

Professor Cameron Simmons from the Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity in Melbourne is reported to have said “There is an urgent need to reduce incidence of people suffering dengue, and understanding the human immune response to infection and the response following vaccination. This unique discovery makes the future development of vaccines that could prevent the spread of the disease a realistic goal and may also pave the way for a universal DENV vaccine.”

This is a massive breakthrough for travellers and people living with this virus. It can be debilitating a it reduces your immune system and the symptoms can vary and affect a variety of everyday tasks.

We hope that the virus can be eradicated and one of the serious risks of travelling is removed!

Tell us, have you ever been to a high risk place for dengue fever? Were you safe? Or have you known anyone who has fallen ill? Share your stories in the comments below…