DENGUE FEVER Recent Advances in the Discovery of Small Organic Molecules for the Prevention and Treatment of Dengue Fever

Dengue fever (DF) is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease, affecting around 100 million people mainly in tropical and subtropical countries. The dengue virus (DENV) is a member of the Flaviviridae family and possesses a single positive-stranded RNA genetic material encoding a single polyprotein, which is cleaved into structural and nonstructural proteins. The consequences of DENV infections range from fever to haemorrhagic manifestations, and the treatment of the disease is restricted to symptomatic relief. Medicinal chemistry approaches allied with synthetic methods can be of great importance for developing effective treatment for this disease, and the scientific literature provides interesting results of studies that mainly targeted viral processes to give rise to novel drugs. Viral entry, RNA replication, and polyprotein cleavage have been the main, although not the only, focus in the development of novel anti-viral compounds for the prevention and treatment of DF. In this chapter, we focus on the new trends in the development of bioactive small molecules.

Keywords: Dengue fever, dengue hemorrhagic fever, antiviral, drug discovery.