Beth Kirkpatrick, the study’s lead investigator and a veteran of other major vaccine research, including her work on campylobacteriosis, anthrax and typhoid. As Pierce explains, next to malaria, dengue is one of the biggest reemerging infections worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, it’s now endemic in more than 100 countries worldwide, including the United States. Like malaria, once thought eradicated from North America, dengue has begun to reappear along the Texas-Mexico border.