Tran Ngoc Huu, Former Director of the institute, who is also head of researcher group for the vaccine programme in Vietnam, said that the vaccine has entered its third phase with over 10,000 children aged 2-14 in five countries with circulating dengue fever − Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam − participating in the pilot.
The programme has been carried out in Vietnam by the Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute since 2011 with 2,336 child patients in An Giang and Tien Giang provinces. After being injected with three vaccine shots, the participants were monitored for 13 months to further evaluate the overall effectiveness of the vaccine.
Pilot results from five countries showed that the vaccine, in addition to preventing dengue fever (caused by any of the dengue virus types) in 56% of the 10,000 kids, also helped reduce severe dengue cases by 88.5% and the risk of hospitalisation due to dengue fever by 67%.
Head of the General Department of Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health, Tran Dac Phu, said that although the number of cases of dengue fever this year in the country fell from last year, the burden of the disease was still heavy as there was currently no specific treatment nor preventive vaccines. The study of the vaccine is very important for the prevention of dengue fever in the future, he stated.
The research for the vaccine will last until 2017 to monitor long-term safety of the vaccine on children participating in the programme.
It is estimated that there are about 50-100 million dengue infections each year around the world, with about 500,000 cases of hospitalisation and about 25,000 deaths.
