Article

Vector-borne diseases

The impact of globalization on the spread of vector-borne infections

Globalization has opened up many advancements in healthcare.

But the free flow of people has also brought about many challenges - not least the increasing ability for infectious diseases to spread¹ rapidly and across borders.

Until recently, vector-borne diseases were restricted to specific geographies. But in the past few decades, rising global temperatures—a result of climate change—have allowed them to move beyond their original areas and spread quickly into other territories.^{2, 3}

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Two notable examples include the expansion of West Nile virus and Chagas disease.

Mosquito-borne West Nile virus (WNV)⁴ was originally recorded primarily in the world’s Eastern Hemisphere. It was first detected in an urban area in 1996 and by 1999 it had reached New York. Then, by 2002, it had spread across the entire US.
Chagas disease⁵ - caused by a parasite which is spread in the feces of the triatomine bug - was originally confined solely to Central and South America. But the disease has now taken hold in other continents.
Dengue - The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades to 5.2 million in 2019. A vast majority of cases are asymptomatic or mild and self-managed, and hence the actual numbers of dengue cases are under-reported. Dengue started to spread in Europe in the recent years with a increasingly outlook.¹⁰

In most countries where vector-borne infections are common, prevention methods² are well-established.

This is crucial since some infections of this kind, particularly with viruses, can be asymptomatic. Unexpected and undetected infections can be fatal, carry significant risk for pregnancies, and can contaminate blood⁶ and transplant supply, exposing the healthcare system to further complications.

Approximately 700,000 deaths annually are estimated to be due to vector-borne infections and 80% of the world's population is at risk of one or more vector-borne diseases.² Detection and treatment are clearly vital to prevent further spread across the globe.

Roche is committed to ever improving testing and analytics, delivering state-of-the-art solutions to aid in the protection of the global blood supply from infectious diseases.

Prepared labs are essential

An intricate and evolving healthcare infrastructure underpinned by quality, safety and accuracy is the first line of defense in prevention against a vector-borne outbreak.

Emergency preparedness should be considered as part of any responsible lab’s development plan. Ensuring scalability and flexibility to respond and adapt quickly is necessary to reduce the risks from emerging vector borne diseases.

This means that the right diagnostic tools are essential for epidemic intelligence, surveillance systems, and investigative approaches, but also to safeguard our blood supply in relation to our blooddonation facilities. Reliable and accurate outcomes of consistent quality enable confidence in results and solutions.

Increased testing efficiency is one way of ensuring the quality and purity of results. Despite the high levels of safety in how blood is collected, tested, processed, and transfused, blood and plasma products do remain vulnerable to diseases.⁷ Labs need confidence in clinical sensitivity and experience to minimize risk.

The best diagnostic tools and platforms are ones that are scalable and fit into an existing workflow. This reduces the need to purchase new systems, and means that lab workers can utilize existing expertise, thus minimizing workload. A broad assay menu spanning across various diseases including Zika, WNV, Chagas, Dengue and Chikungunya allows for greater outbreak coverage. Advanced automation reduces the possibility of human error, meaning assay results are standardized, clinically validated, and reliable – leading to higher confidence in results.