Vector borne viral diseases: An emerging threat and their control strategies in Bangladesh perspectives

Abstract

Of the vector-borne viral diseases (VBVDs), dengue and chikungunya viral fever appearing almost every year since last two decades but recent report indicates that Japanese encephalitis, West Nile and Zika viral fever has also entered into Bangladesh as these diseases are endemic in India, Myanmar and other South-East Asia countries. Bangladesh have the experiences of several outbreak of dengue (first report in the year 1964 then from 2000 till 2019), chikungunya viral fever (first report in the year 2008 and then from 2014 to 2017), JE (reported once in 1977), Zika (reported once in 2015) and WN (reported first time in 2019) from different region of the country. Different species of vector mosquitoes, Aedes and Culex spps and their population are very high during pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons in this country. As vector control strategies are very poor (killing of adult mosquitoes by fogging and spraying during outbreak seasons only); so they are very active from dawn to dusk and are responsible for frequent outbreak of dengue and chikungunya every year. Proposed strategies could easily be adapted to reduce prevalence of most of the VBVDs by screening of travelers during in and out from Bangladesh through rapid screening kit tests, social mobilization, behavioral changes, community engagement, vectors control by adapting modern techniques like, predators, parasitoids, pathogens, Classical Sterile Insect Technique (CSIT), genetically modified mosquito (GMS), Gamma Irradiated sterile mosquito (GISM), Oil drip, predator fish culture to kill larva and also using available effective vaccines against important VBVDs before facing serious catastrophe. This review considers existing and proposed strategies for vector and disease control as well as discussing some of the novel approaches how to improve worsening of public health issue against most of the VBVDs and their endemicity in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Vector-borne viral diseases, Dengue, Chikungunya, JE, WN, Zika, CIST, GMS, GISM.

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