Phototake Inc. / Alamy
Dengue infects around 390 million people each year, of whom about 96 million suffer from symptomatic infection, yet there are no licensed vaccines or specific treatments to prevent infection.
A recombinant vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease has shown efficacy in a phase III randomised clinical trial conducted in more than 10,000 children in five Asian countries, published in
The Lancet.
Children received three injections of the live vaccine or placebo and followed for up to two years. Researchers recorded 117 dengue cases in the vaccine group and 133 in the placebo arm, representing an overall protective efficacy of 56.5%.
Lead author Maria Rosario Capeding from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa City, the Philippines, said the results suggest that the vaccine can reduce the incidence of symptomatic dengue infection by more than half and reduce severe disease and hospitalisations.
References
Capeding MC et al. Clinical efficacy and safety of a novel tetravalent dengue vaccine in healthy children in Asia: a phase 3, randomised, observer-masked, placebo-controlled trial. The Lancet (Online, 11 July 2014; doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61060-6.
