Widespread Clinical Trials Of Dengue Fever Vaccine

[churchill]

HCM CITY— The second phase of clinical trials for a vaccine against dengue fever is well under way in Viet Nam, Singapore, Thailand and countries in north and south America, a seminar in HCM City heard yesterday.

Experts stressed the need for a vaccine to fight the spread of the mosquito-borne disease, saying the situation in the country has worsened during the last four years.

Dr. Tran Ngoc Huu, head of HCM City’s Pasteur Institute, said that the number of dengue fever cases diagnosed this year until the May 3 was up by 20 per cent than the same period last year.

Most cases were in southern Viet Nam, he said. So far this year, as many as 13,098 people have been found to have contracted the fever, an increase of 28 per cent on the same period last year.

Eleven patients died, four more than last year.

Dengue fever has become a serious problem over the last few decades not only in Viet Nam but also in the Asia- Pacific region, said Chusak Prasittisuk, Coordinator of Communicable Disease Control at the World Health Organisation’s Asia Pacific regional office.

"About 1.8 billion people in this region are in danger of being affected by dengue fever," he said.

Huu said that the worsening dengue fever situation can be blamed on climate change, rapid urbanisation and a lack of water system.

Especially in the Mekong River Delta, residents use water tanks, a favourable breeding site for the Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes, the only insect that carries the dengue virus, to store water.

Dr. Le Ngoc Dien of Sanofi-Aventis Pharmaceutical Group said controlling the mosquitoes that transmit dengue is necessary but not sufficient to fight the spread of the disease. A safe and effective vaccine has been long awaited to prevent dengue epidemics, he added.

He said there was no vaccine or specific treatment against dengue fever in the market. A vaccine to prevent dengue fever is expected to be produced and sold in the market by 2015.

Sanofi Pasteur, from the group’s vaccine division, is collaborating with the Communicable Diseases Center in Singapore and the Pasteur Institute in Viet Nam to conduct clinical studies of a vaccine on children and adults. Trials of the investigational tetravalent dengue are ongoing in Thailand and the Philippines.

Clinical studies

The company started the development of a dengue vaccine in the 90s. Clinical studies with the most advanced tetravalent candidate vaccine started a few years ago and it has been evaluated in adults and children from non-endemic and endemic countries (U.S., Mexico, Philippines).

Overall, a balanced immune response against all four serotypes of the fever was observed after three doses of the vaccine, the company said. It added that the vaccine appears to be well tolerated with a similar safety profile after each dose. —

http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showart...num=02HEA090509