Talk:The Dengue Virus and Possibilities of Antiviral Treatment

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Comments by Julia Josowitz

Very good overall! I thought you did a good job of talking about the history of the virus as well as new research to try and eradicate it.

Introduction: I thought this was a good general introduction to the topic and very easy to understand. I think it might be helpful to define what a serotype is, because I don't think the reader will know (I didn't). Also it may be helpful to include some other statistics, like how many people die yearly due to the virus (it is unclear if most infected people die).

History: I thought this section was really cool and provided interesting information about the course of the virus in human history. It's interesting that cases dropped but then rose again with air travel. I had a few questions: how different are isolates? Like different phylogenetically or in some other way? Also, what do you mean by "virus type specific manner"? I was just a little confused. I also thought it was interesting that the virus has not been tracked well over time in certain areas.

Epidemiology: I thought it was good that you pointed out that even after contracting one strain of the virus, you are still susceptible to the others. I also liked the emphasis on how difficult vaccine development has been. It also may be interesting to include what percentage of those infected die?

Possibilities: You say there is no vaccine but I thought earlier you mentioned a vaccine going into clinical trials? Is it just because it doesn't treat the 5th strain? That was a little unclear. The research about vascular leakage was really interesting and seemed promising. Maybe you can include a figure or data from that paper? The part about medicinal plants was also super interesting and stood out as a non-traditional way to treat the virus.

Conclusion: A really good conclusion! I have a couple ideas of things to add: what can people do to protect themselves from the virus? Are people in hot climates near mosquitos more at risk? Will this problem increase as mosquitos enter new habitats due to climate change?