Abstract
Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the leading form of viral encephalitis in Asia. It is caused by the JE virus (JEV), which belongs to the family Flaviviridae. JEV is endemic to many parts of Asia, where periodic outbreaks take hundreds of lives. Despite the catastrophes it causes, JE has remained a tropical disease uncommon in the West. With rapid globalization and climatic shift, JEV has started to emerge in areas where the threat was previously unknown. Scientific evidence predicts that JEV will soon become a global pathogen and cause of worldwide pandemics. Although some research documents JEV pathogenesis and drug discovery, worldwide awareness of the need for extensive research to deal with JE is still lacking. This review focuses on the exigency of developing a worldwide effort to acknowledge the prime importance of performing an extensive study of this thus far neglected tropical viral disease. This review also outlines the pathogenesis, the scientific efforts channeled into develop a therapy, and the outlook for a possible future breakthrough addressing this killer disease.
Highlights
A disturbing news item that was aired on news channels in August 2008 reported that the ‘‘kid killer’’ in Uttar Pradesh (UP) had struck again
Hospitals were flooded with patients, proper medical treatment was unavailable, and many people died [1]. This has been a very common report coming nearly every year from UP in northern India, which has become an epicenter for the killer disease Japanese encephalitis (JE)
Statistical records show that more than 25,000 children have died of JE in the region since 1978, and the disease was started to be treated as a national health emergency in India in 2007 [2]
Summary
A disturbing news item that was aired on news channels in August 2008 reported that the ‘‘kid killer’’ in Uttar Pradesh (UP) had struck again. A significant piece of research on minocycline as an anti-JEV drug is an in vivo study [38] that showed that minocycline reduces neuronal apoptosis, microglial activation, active caspase activity, proinflammatory mediators, and viral titer markedly on the 9th day after infection. Researchers have constructed the yellow fever virus to express JEV protein, the most promising recombinant vaccine under development. It is widely known as Chemeri-Vax-JE, in which the structural protein (PrM and E) of the JEV SA14-14-2 strain was inserted into YF17D [80,81,82]. More studies are needed to exploit the potential that natural products may possess to be developed into anti-JEV drugs
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