Scientists Race to Stop the World’s Fastest Spreading Tropical Disease
About 40% of humanity is at risk of contracting dengue fever. In episode two of Bloomberg’s Moonshot, meet the scientists trying to eradicate it.
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are the primary vector responsible for the transmission of Flavivirus Dengue and Dengue hemorrhagic fever.
Photographer: Science Source/Getty Images
Mosquitoes are much more than a bloodsucking annoyance. For close to half of the world, they represent disease and death.
In some tropical regions, they transmit a powerful virus called dengue that kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. Dengue is the world’s fastest spreading tropical illness, and with accelerating climate change, is appearing in non-tropical areas once free from it, including the southern U.S. By 2080, scientists predict the sickness could affect 2 billion people worldwide.