People movement drives dengue virus transmission

To stop the transmission of dengue, a mosquito-borne virus that threatens some 4 billion people worldwide, it’s crucial to focus on people movement, not just on the traditional mosquito control-and-prevention methods, say medical entomologists from the University of California, Davis in ground-breaking research published Dec. 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In a two-year, finely detailed study of dengue transmission in Iquitos, Peru, a 13-member team led by Thomas Scott of the UC Davis Department of Entomology found that human movement—people going from house-to-house to visit their friends and relatives—is a key component to driving the virus transmission. “This finding has important implications for dengue prevention, challenging the appropriateness of current approaches to vector control,” said lead author Steven Stoddard, a medical entomologist in the Scott lab and part of the team that included scientists from the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit; San Diego State University; University...