Difficulties and advancements in developing drugs for the treatment of dengue fever

Dengue fever is caused by infections with dengue virus, the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral pathogen in humans. There are no drugs available to treat dengue virus infection and we discuss the strategies available to develop novel drugs against it. Treating the disease pathology is hindered by a lack of understanding of the disease progression and the causes of disease symptoms such as vascular leakage. Most drug-discovery efforts have concentrated on viral targets, which have their own particular challenges. Ultimately, the only way to know whether a direct-acting antiviral will be a viable approach for treating dengue patients is to test safe compounds with demonstrated antiviral activity in human trials