World's First Dengue Vaccine Approved For Use In Mexico

Dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease that results in a flu-like illness, now has a vaccine.

The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi created the vaccine, called Dengvaxia, and it has first been approved in Mexico. At this time, it's been tested on over 29,000 patients, according to Al Jazeera.

The vaccine will prevent all four dengue virus strains in children and adults between the ages of 9 and 45 who live in areas where the disease is an endemic.

"We are making dengue the next vaccine-preventable disease," Olivier Charmeil, executive vice president for vaccines at Sanofi, said in an interview with The New York Times.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dengue and severe dengue have grown considerably in the last decade, putting close to half of the world's population at risk--particularly those living in tropical and sub-tropical climates and mostly in urban and semi-urban areas. Furthermore, severe dengue remains the leading cause of serious illness and even death among children in some Asian and Latin American countries.

"Dengue is a growing health threat in Mexico and many other tropical and subtropical countries in Latin America and Asia," said José Luis Arredondo García, associate director of clinical research at Mexico's National Institute of Pediatrics, in a news release. "Dengvaxia will be a critical addition to the integrated dengue prevention and control efforts. It will be an essential tool to boost on-going community efforts to relieve the long-standing suffering that this disease continues to bring to people in endemic countries like ours."

By the end of December, the company will have applied for vaccine approval in 20 countries.

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