Searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack: advances in mosquito-borne arbovirus surveillance

Ana L Ramírez,Scott A Ritchie,Andrew F Van Den Hurk,Dagmar B Meyer

doi:10.1186/s13071-018-2901-x

Abstract

Surveillance is critical for the prevention and control of mosquito-borne arboviruses. Detection of elevated or emergent virus activity serves as a warning system to implement appropriate actions to reduce outbreaks. Traditionally, surveillance of arboviruses has relied on the detection of specific antibodies in sentinel animals and/or detection of viruses in pools of mosquitoes collected using a variety of sampling methods. These methods, although immensely useful, have limitations, including the need for a cold chain for sample transport, cross-reactivity between related viruses in serological assays, the requirement for specialized equipment or infrastructure, and overall expense. Advances have recently been made on developing new strategies for arbovirus surveillance. These strategies include sugar-based surveillance, whereby mosquitoes are collected in purpose-built traps and allowed to expectorate on nucleic acid preservation cards which are submitted for virus detection. New diagnostic approaches, such as next-generation sequencing, have the potential to expand the genetic information obtained from samples and aid in virus discovery. Here, we review the advancement of arbovirus surveillance systems over the past decade. Some of the novel approaches presented here have already been validated and are currently being integrated into surveillance programs. Other strategies are still at the experimental stage, and their feasibility in the field is yet to be evaluated.

Highlights

Arthropod-borne viruses transmitted by mosquitoes are of public health and veterinary importance globally causing disease syndromes including encephalitis, viral haemorrhagic disease and arthritis
Prevention and control of most arboviruses is almost solely reliant on effective mosquito management. This can be enhanced by surveillance, where detection of elevated or emergent virus activity serves as a warning system to implement appropriate actions to reduce the severity and duration of outbreaks
Monitoring human and animal disease Human or animal case surveillance relies on hospitals, laboratories and health practitioners notifying public health authorities of confirmed or suspected cases of arbovirus infection that occur in the population

Summary

Introduction

Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) transmitted by mosquitoes are of public health and veterinary importance globally causing disease syndromes including encephalitis, viral haemorrhagic disease and arthritis. Prevention and control of most arboviruses is almost solely reliant on effective mosquito management This can be enhanced by surveillance, where detection of elevated or emergent virus activity serves as a warning system to implement appropriate actions to reduce the severity and duration of outbreaks. Arboviruses have complex transmission cycles with dual-host tropism: they replicate in vertebrate hosts (such as birds or mammals) and arthropod hematophagous vectors (such as mosquitoes or ticks) [8]. This complexity needs to be accounted for, and an ideal surveillance system should rely on different sources of information (Fig. 1), and can include

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Conclusion