Washington: Researchers have inched closer to developing a novel therapy using mutated antibodies to protect people from the dengue virus. Scientists, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research, said that nearly half of the world's population is at risk of infection by the dengue virus, yet there is no specific treatment for the disease.
Despite the threat posed by the disease, developing a vaccine against dengue has so far proved challenging, because dengue is not one virus but four different viruses, or serotypes, each of which must be neutralised by the vaccine. Protecting people from only one or some of the four viruses could cause them to develop the more severe form of dengue if they later become infected with one of the other serotypes, according to Ram Sasisekharan, Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT.
"That was the motivation for carrying out our study, to generate a fully neutralising antibody that works for all four serotypes," he said in a statement. Efforts to develop a therapeutic antibody for dengue are focused on a part of the virus called the envelope protein.
"This is a very critical protein that allows the virus to latch on to the appropriate receptor within the host, to infect them, replicate and spread," Sasisekharan said. The team led by Sasisekharan decided to look for antibodies that target the "A" strand region of the protein....
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01:30 PM, Apr 09, 2013
Dengue, the epidemic caused by mosquito bites during the day, has affected all parts of Delhi and many other parts of the country as well. ...
11:41 AM, Nov 20, 2012
New Delhi: Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh has done it again. On Sunday, the senior politician compared India Against Corruption (IAC) activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal to Bollywood actor Rakhi Sawant saying that they both tried to expose "but with no substance". "Arvind Kejriwal is like Rakhi Sawant. They both try and expose, but with no substance," Digvijaya tweeted. In the next line, Digvijaya added, "Apologies to Rakhi Sawant. I am an...
05:23 PM, Nov 11, 2012
New Delhi: A former Swiss bank employee has claimed that several politicians, cricketers and internationally well-known people have black money in the Swiss banks. Rudolf Elmer, who gave WikiLeaks the black money list told CNN-IBN that he did not sell any data to the Indian government. Speaking via Skype, Elmer said, "There are politicians, cricket players, international well-known people who are part of that sort of information." Meanwhile, the government...
07:28 AM, Nov 11, 2012
New Delhi: A former Swiss bank employee has claimed that several politicians, cricketers and internationally well-known people have black money in the Swiss banks. Rudolf Elmer, who gave WikiLeaks the black money list told CNN-IBN that he did not sell any data to the Indian government. Speaking via Skype, Elmer said, "There are politicians, cricket players, international well-known people who are part of that sort of information." Meanwhile, the government...
07:28 AM, Nov 11, 2012
New Delhi: India Against Corruption activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said he was a dengue mosquito and would bite the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Kejriwal said this while responding to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid's statement that Kejriwal's attack was just a mosquito bite that causes minor irritation. Kejriwal said, "I am a dengue mosquito. I will bite the Congress and BJP and then they will be...
03:17 PM, Nov 10, 2012
Mumbai: Mumbai terror attack convict Ajmal Amir Kasab is suffering from fever and undergoing treatment in the high security Arthur Road jail in Mumbai, police said on Sunday. "Kasab is being treated for fever for the past few days. Suspecting that the prisoner could be suffering from dengue, three tests were conducted on him by a team of doctors of JJ hospital but the results were negative. Doctors do not...
04:29 PM, Nov 04, 2012
Sagarika Ghose: Hi there. We're focusing tonight on a disease that has almost become an annual epidemic. There have been 17,000 cases of dengue this year alone--dengue being the mosquito born disease which can kill. At the moment dengue is spreading unchecked in Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Veteran film maker Yash Chopra died last month from dengue. When will public health officials wake up to the need to prevent...
11:40 AM, Nov 02, 2012
There have been 17,000 cases of dengue this year alone. At the moment dengue is spreading unchecked in Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. ...
11:59 PM, Nov 01, 2012
Dengue has been spreading across cities claiming lives. Tonight at 10, CNN-IBN Deputy Editor Sagarika Ghose discusses with a panel of experts whether dengue is becoming an epidemic. You can send your viewpoint and questions on the issue here or tweet them to us
@Face_the_Nation or
@SagarikaGhose.
01:52 PM, Nov 01, 2012
The dengue menace continues in Bihar. Over 300 patients have been admitted to government hospitals so far and 18 people have lost their lives. Many more patients have been admitted to private hospitals and as per rough estimates, the figure could well be over 1,000. Only three blood banks in Patna have the facility to segregate blood platelets crucial for transfusions. The administration claims it's on war footing, but these ...
11:35 AM, Oct 31, 2012
Bangalore has seen a dramatic jump in the number of dengue cases. ...
07:40 PM, Oct 30, 2012
New Delhi: Dengue cases in the capital inched closer towards touching the 1,000-mark with 36 people testing positive for the mosquito-borne disease on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases this season to 985. All the 36 cases were reported from three Municipal Corporations, with the maximum number of cases coming from Shah (North) zone. Two children have so far succumbed to dengue ever since the disease began spreading in...
07:16 PM, Oct 30, 2012
New Delhi: Dengue cases in the capital were on a rise with 38 people testing positive for the mosquito-borne disease on Sunday, taking the total number of such cases this season to 910. All 37 cases were reported from three municipal corporations while there were no fresh cases either from the VVIP areas of the capital or from Delhi Cantt area. Two children have so far succumbed to dengue ever...
11:20 PM, Oct 28, 2012
Pune: With a surge in Swine flu deaths in recent months, the health scenario in Pune is further compounded with the spread of dengue cases leading to a face-off between city fathers and civic administration. Concerns are being expressed over about 300 dengue cases reported in the city during the last two and a half months out of which three proved to be fatal. The health authorities, already hard pressed...
11:16 AM, Oct 27, 2012
New Delhi: Dengue fever continues to spread fast in the national capital with more than 750 people testing positive this season. Cases are on an all time rise in 2012. The sheer number of cases and the twin deaths have forced the MCD to act. South MCD PRO Mukesh Yadav said, "We are fumigating & also making the people aware." In September only, 50 cases were reported, dengue cases shot...
09:49 AM, Oct 26, 2012
New Delhi: Dengue continued to spread fast in the national capital with 37 patients today testing positive for the mosquito-borne disease, taking the total number of such cases this season to 788. Thirty-three cases were reported from three municipal corporations while one was from the VVIP areas of the capital and three from outside the city. Two children have so far succumbed to dengue ever since the disease began spreading...
07:32 PM, Oct 25, 2012
Mumbai: After tinsel town lost its king of romance Yash Raj Chopra to dengue, pressure is mounting on civic bodies from celebrities. Waking up to the problem, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has now introduced a slew of measures to curb further spread of the disease. The BMC claims that it had found that mosquitoes were breeding at the Yashraj studious. "Our officer had been to the Yash Raj Studio for...
10:12 PM, Oct 24, 2012
After filmmaker Yash Chopra's death put the focus on dengue in Mumbai, the BMC has asked Lilavati Hospital for a report on Chopra's death. The BMC says this would help in identifying measures to counter outbreak of dengue. The BMC also says they had found mosquitoes breeding at the offices of Yash Raj films which could have been where the filmmaker caught the virus. So far 650 cases of dengue ...
11:12 AM, Oct 23, 2012
Mumbai: Under fire from various quarters after legendary film-maker Yash Chopra died from dengue, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will approach all private studios for entry to fumigate the premises against mosquitoes, a civic health official said Monday. There are around two dozen big and small private film studios in Mumbai spread over huge properties, said the official who declined to be identified. "Despite our best efforts, they refused permission...
10:52 AM, Oct 23, 2012
