Emerging and Re-emerging Arboviruses: Diagnostics, Molecular Epidemiology, Pathogenesis, Immunity and Vaccine Development

Arboviral infections are rapidly growing global health threats, causing significant infectious disease burden and up to 700,000 deaths yearly. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes these diseases as public health priorities. Mosquito-borne viral diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and Japanese encephalitis have expanded to newer territories due to climate change, urbanization, and increased human movement. Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus, a tick-borne virus, is also an emerging threat in East Asia. Other many arboviruses are emerging in specific areas with potential threats of global public health emergency. Many of these arboviruses lacks specific treatment, diagnostic challenges, and vaccine development is in progress only. Therefore, arboviruses pose a public health challenge in tropical and subtropical regions due to viral evolution, vector expansion, and complex immune responses. This situation calls for an updated understanding of these viruses.The complex immunological landscape of arboviral infections, especially cross-reactive antibody responses and antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), complicates vaccine development and disease control. Current vaccines have limited serotype and genotype representation and lack comprehensive functional immune data from endemic populations, leading to variable efficacy and safety concerns. Molecular surveillance alone does not explain immune protection or enhancement, while serological studies without genotype resolution cannot capture genotype-specific immune escape and cross-reactivity. To address these gaps, this research topic aims to determine how viral genetic diversity and heterogeneous host immune backgrounds influence disease severity, pathogenicity, immune protection, vaccine responsiveness, and therapeutic efficacy in major arboviral infections. This project integrates viral genomics, molecular epidemiology, serology, neutralization and ADE analyses, immunogenomics, therapeutic evaluation, and mouse model studies to define immune correlates associated with severe disease and protective immunity.This research topic focuses on major emerging and re-emerging arboviral infections and their public health impact. The study should apply multidisciplinary approaches combining molecular epidemiology, viral genomics, immunology, pathogenicity evaluation, and therapeutic assessment to better understand virus–host interactions and disease outcomes. The following detail themes include under the scope of this research topic.- Molecular epidemiological surveillance of DENV, JEV, CHIKV, ZIKV, SFTSV and other arboviruses in endemic regions.- Viral genomic and phylogenetic analyses of genetic diversity and viral evolution.- Serological evaluation using neutralization and ADE assays.- Immunogenomic analyses of severe disease, protective immunity, and vaccine responsiveness.- Comparative analyses of immune landscapes across endemic populations.- Pathogenicity studies using in vitro systems and mouse models.- Evaluation of antiviral therapeutics and drug candidates.- Integration of genomic and immunological data for vaccine development and outbreak prediction. Topic editors: Mya Myat Ngwe Tun, Shyam Prakash Dumre Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81853/emerging-and-re-emerging-arboviruses-diagnostics-molecular-epidemiology-pathogenesis-immunity-and-vaccine-development