Hope to effectively prevent dengue fever disease was raised yesterday as the French pharmaceutical giant, Sanofi, announced the first approval of a dengue fever vaccine it developed. The approval, which was disclosed in Sanofi’s news release yesterday, is the first in the world for any vaccine for the dengue fever disease, which afflicts tens of millions of people around the world and is becoming an increasing threat.
According to a report in the New York Times, the vaccine, which it is called Dengvaxia, was approved by Mexico’s Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk for prevention of dengue in people between nine to 45 years old, living in endemic areas.
More countries are expected to approve this vaccine for their populace. Sanofi said it had begun manufacturing Dengvaxia and that it would eventually be able to produce 100 million doses annually. Dengue is a debilitating viral disease of the tropics, transmitted by mosquitoes, and causing sudden fever and acute pains in the joints.
Dengue is regarded globally as the most important mosquito-borne viral disease. Before this new development, there were no licensed vaccines or specific therapeutics to tackle the disease. The virus and its vector are widely distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics regions of the world.
Dengue and malaria are endemic in Nigeria. An estimated 50 million to 100 million people a year are sickened by dengue, though that might be an underestimate. One study said about 400 million people are infected each year, with about 100 million of them feeling sick to some degree.
“Today, with this first marketing authorisation of Dengvaxia, we have achieved our goal of making dengue the next vaccine- preventable disease,” Olivier Brandicourt, chief executive of Sanofi, said in the statement.”
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