Vaccine maker targets dengue.

      The Mexican government has given Swiftwater vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur the go ahead to market the first vaccine to prevent dengue fever.

Dengue is the fastest growing mosquito-borne disease in the world today, causing nearly 400 million infections every year, according to the World Health Organization. The virus is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito that's been infected with one of the four dengue virus variations.

Dengue is a fever-producing illness with symptoms ranging from mild to incapacitating high fever, with a severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pain, and rash, according to the WHO. Severe dengue is a potentially lethal complication which can develop from dengue infections.

The virus is most commonly found in tropical countries. Dengue is not transmitted directly from person-to-person, according to the WHO.

Sanofi said in a press release that its Dengvaxia, tetravalent dengue vaccine, helps prevent the disease caused by all four dengue virus types in people between 9 and 45 years old living in regionally affected areas. In two studies, the vaccine reduced dengue from all four viral variations in two-thirds of the participants. It also showed that the vaccine prevented 9 out of 10 cases of severe dengue and 8 out 10 hospitalizations due to dengue in this age group, according to the company.

“This is a historic milestone for our company, for the global public health community and, most importantly, for half the world’s population who lives at risk of dengue,” Chief Executive Officer Dr. Olivier Brandicourt said in a press release.

The company is building a new facility on its Swiftwater campus to manufacture the vaccine, adding additional capacity to the fill and packaging operation that's up and running in France. Sanofi is also building a new quality control facility and expanding an existing building on its Swiftwater campus that supports its research and development and industrial operations teams.  The first doses of the vaccine have been produced and full-scale production capacity will be reaching 100 million vaccine doses annually, according to the company.                          Sanofi-Pasteur began working on a dengue vaccine with local and global public health and scientific communities 20 years ago. Dengue-endemic regions of Mexico participated in all three phases of the clinical development program for the vaccine.Increased urbanization, mobility of populations and climate changes has resulted in the spread of dengue from a handful of countries to 128 in the last 50 years, according to the WHO. 

SOURCE :http://www.poconorecord.com/article/20151227/NEWS/151229621/101010/NEWS