A simple cream to apply to the mosquito bite to reduce the risk of infection. This is the ambition of researchers at the University of Leeds following their recent discovery. They have observed that a cream already used in the treatment of genital warts and certain skin cancers could protect against zika or dengue fever after a mosquito bite.
Indeed, many infectious diseases are transmitted through this. When this takes place, the body reacts to the skin lesion but is not ready to fight the virus thus transmitted.
600 times less chikungunya virus
British researchers therefore tested the application of this cream one hour after the bite. First, they compared the cutaneous reaction of a sample of healthy skin exposed to zika. Part of the skin had benefited from the application of the cream, the other not. The result is very conclusive: the untreated samples showed 70 times more traces of the virus than the others. The same exercise with the chikungunya was even more spectacular: the skin then contained 600 times more traces than the skin samples with the cream!
Scientists have also tested their hypothesis on mice. Objective, observe how the body reacts to the viral attack, with or without the cream. The same finding of effectiveness: two weeks after the mosquito bite, the survival rate of rodents infected with the Semliki forest virus was zero for untreated animals. Whereas it was 65% for the mice having received the cream.
Promising therapy
According to the researchers, the cream helps to stimulate the immune system against the virus quickly after the bite. Reducing the ability of the virus to replicate and therefore infect the body. It would notably start the production of macrophages, immune cells.
“It is too early to recommend this therapy to people bitten by mosquitoes,” say the authors. However, “we are hopeful that this discovery will help many people to protect themselves from certain infectious diseases,” they add. The main interest being that this therapeutic method seems to work regardless of the virus. A major hope in many regions of the world where these diseases are wreaking havoc.
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Source: Destination Santé
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