Rift Valley Fever; An Emerging Viral Zoonosis

摘要

Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is an arthropod-borne virus that causes periodic epizootics and epidemics in sub-Saharan countries of Africa and Egypt. This Class A bio-defense agent primarily infects livestock resulting in abortions and high mortality in young animals. RVFV is implicated as the cause of hemorrhagic fever, encephalitis, retinitis and fatal hepatitis in humans. Though currently confined to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, RVFV has the potential to be introduced into other countries by mosquito transmission or contact with infected tissues and aerosolized material. Inactivated and the experimental live attenuated RVFV vaccines generated for conferring protection in animals and humans suffer from safety, potency and cost issues. Therefore, there is an urgent need for developing safe and effective marker vaccines that rapidly elicit protective immunity against RVFV infection. Recently, there have been some steps taken towards development of novel vaccine strategies to address this issue. This paper will review RVFV biology, exiting and upcoming prophylactic approaches taken towards controlling RVFV infection in endemic or previously unaffected countries.