An $11 million federal grant will enable the University of Hawaii’s Pacific Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Research to continue work on dengue and other infectious diseases.

The center’s director, Richard Yanagihara, said Wednesday that the five-year grant will enable the center to become a science center focusing on emerging and re-emerging microbial threats of regional concern and global importance.

A dengue outbreak in Hawaii in 2001 helped lead to the establishment of the center in 2003.

One of the center’s main research targets is West Nile virus. It hasn’t yet reached Hawaii or Alaska but has affected people in the other 48 states and Puerto Rico.