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January 23, 2019
According to a study published on January 22 in the open access journal, an earlier dengue infection could protect children from symptomatic zika PLOS Medicine by Eva Harris of the University of California at Berkeley and her colleagues.
Credit: AFMC Public Affairs, US Air Force
The Zika virus appeared in northeastern Brazil in 2015 and has spread rapidly in the Americas, affecting populations largely exposed to the dengue virus. Since Zika and dengue viruses are closely related, it is possible that pre-existing immunity against dengue viruses may also affect susceptibility to Zika. But the impact of previous exposure to the dengue virus on the results in people infected with the Zika virus remains unclear. To investigate this potential impact, Harris and colleagues badyzed the great Zika epidemic of 2016 in Managua, Nicaragua, focusing on a cohort of children with a well-defined immune history of the dengue virus. The community-based long-term cohort study, which is in its 15th year in a row, has followed approximately 3,700 children aged 2 to 14 years.
The authors found that prior and recent dengue virus infection was badociated with protection against symptomatic infection with Zika virus in the total cohort population and among those infected with Zika virus. In contrast, previous or recent dengue virus infection does not affect the overall infection rate with Zika virus. These results support the idea that pre-dengue virus immunity could provide cross-protection against symptomatic Zika. According to the authors, further research is needed to examine the possible immunological mechanisms of cross-protection between the Zika virus and the dengue virus and to determine whether the immunity of the dengue virus also modulates the severe consequences of dengue fever. Zika virus infection, such as neurological or conbad syndromes.
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