First Vaccine for Dengue Now Approved in 14 Countries

Sanofi-Pasteur - a unit of French pharmaceutical company Sanofi - that manufactures the only approved vaccine for dengue said that the vaccines has received approval in 14 countries. Recent approvals for Dengvaxia granted by health authorities are those from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Guatemala, Peru, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore have already granted it the approval.

"We're pleased to see the growing medical and public health recognition for the vaccine," Su Peing Ng, head of Global Medical Affairs for Sanofi Pasteur, said in a statement.

"With this new tool in hand, public health communities in dengue-endemic countries now have additional means to achieve the WHO objectives for 50 percent reduction in mortality and 25 percent reduction in morbidity due to dengue by 2020," Su Peing Ng said.

Notably, the Latin American Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases recently published its support for dengue vaccination. National medical societies in Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico recently also recommended vaccination with Dengvaxia, a company statement said.

In the clinical study population nine years old and older, the dengue vaccine has been documented to prevent two-thirds of dengue cases due to all four serotypes of dengue.

The dengue vaccine also prevented eight of 10 hospitalisations due to dengue and 93 percent of serious dengue cases like the deadly hemorrhagic form of the disease, over the 25-month study follow-up period of the large-scale efficacy studies conducted in 10 endemic countries in Latin America and Asia.

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Source-IANS