Your chances of spreading dengue are high if you have anaemia, according to a new study. Researchers of the study say this is because mosquitoes are likely to obtain the dengue virus when they feed on blood with low levels of iron.
The study was conducted by a team that included researchers from theTsinghua University and State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control in Beijing, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang in Bangkok, and the 920 Hospital Joint Logistics Support Force in Kunming.
The goal of the study was to investigate the potential impact the quality of blood had on the spread of dengue virus.For the study, the team obtained blood from healthy people. They then added the dengue virus to every sample. The team then fed the blood to mosquitoes. They wanted to know how many of them would get infected from the samples. While the results were different from each batch, they found the levels of iron in the blood played a huge role in the spread of dengue. "The more iron in the blood, the fewer mosquitoes were infected," UConn Health immunologist Penghua Wang told a news portal
Researchers speculate the reason for this effect may be due to the mosquitoes' immune systems."In areas where dengue is endemic, iron deficiency is more common. It doesn't necessarily explain it, the high prevalence of dengue...but it could be possible that iron supplementation could reduce dengue transmission to mosquitoes in those areas," Wang told a news portal.
Mosquitoes, primarily in the tropics, cause dengue fever to spread. Patients suffer from a fever, rash, and terrible aches. Even though there is a vaccine for the disease, it could make the condition worse in people who have not been infected by it before. Health officials are still looking for ways to reduce the risk of the disease.
Meanwhile, another study's discovery could help scientists develop better treatment options for patients with severe dengue disease. "We discovered that, in severe cases, a particular enzyme called tryptase cuts the proteins that act as seals between blood vessel cells, resulting in blood vessel leakage and shock during dengue infection," study authorAshley St. John, an Assistant Professor from Duke-NUS' Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, told a news portal. Adding, "Currently, only supportive care is available to patients suffering from severe dengue disease, with no targeted treatment for this potentially fatal condition. We believe our findings raise the possibility of developing new targeted treatments for dengue and, specifically, one that might be able to prevent shock."
The study's findings were originally published in Nature Microbiology.
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