Dengue Patient
A patient lies on a bed in a ward reserved for people suffering from dengue fever in a hospital at Barrio Obrero district in Asuncion April 14, 2011. The mosquito-borne disease is a threat to nearly half of the world's population. Of the estimated 220 million people infected each year, two million -- mostly children in Latin America and Asia -- develop a severe form called dengue hemorrhagic fever. Reuters

Sanofi's new vaccine for dengue has won regulatory approval in Mexico to become world's first immunisation against the deadly mosquito-borne virus.

The French drugmaker announced the arrival of the vaccine on Wednesday. However, no details about the pricing of the vaccine have been revealed yet. The company is either awaiting approval or is planning to apply for market approval in 20 more countries by the end of 2015.

The preventive treatment called Dengvaxia has been approved for all four dengue virus serotypes. Dengvaxia has been approved only for patients aged between 9 and 45 who live in the area where the disease is endemic. That means, the vaccine cannot be availed by tourists and can't be administered to young children who are at a greater risk of contracting the disease.

During the clinical trials, Dengvaxia successfully prevented the disease in 40,000 children and adults aged 9 and above. The vaccine prevented 93 percent of the cases in Latin America and Asia, and successfully reduced hospitalisation rates by 80 percent.

The head of Sanofi’s vaccines business, Olivier Charmeil, says that Sanofi will file for approval in Europe in 2016 and in the U.S. in 2017. The dengue vaccine will be manufactured at two manufacturing units within France.

“Today, with this first marketing authorization of Dengvaxia, we have achieved our goal of making dengue the next vaccine-preventable disease,” said Charmeil, in a press release. “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.”

Dengue is one of the fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease in the world. It results in more than 400 million infections in a year. In the past 50 years, dengue has spread from a few countries to a total of 128 countries, leading to a loss of USD$9 billion in a year.

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