“India has approved its first dengue vaccine, a two-dose vaccine from Takeda Pharmaceutical that, in a late-stage trial, was 80 percent effective against confirmed dengue during the year following the second shot,” reports The Doomslayer.
Reuters reports:
Takeda Pharmaceutical’s dengue vaccine Qdenga has been approved by India’s drug regulator, making it the first such vaccine to be cleared in the country, the Japanese drugmaker’s India unit said on Monday.
Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease and one of the fastest-spreading vector-borne illnesses globally. The World Health Organization reported a record 14.4 million dengue cases and 11,201 deaths worldwide in 2024, including 232,425 cases and 233 deaths in India…
Reported dengue cases in India rose 11-fold in the past two decades, according to Takeda Biopharmaceuticals India.
Qdenga, designed to protect against all four dengue virus serotypes, is indicated for the prevention of dengue in children and adults aged 4 to 60 years, the company said.
In a late-stage trial, the vaccine, approved in 43 countries so far, showed an efficacy of 80.2% against confirmed dengue cases one year after the second dose.
It also showed 90.4% efficacy against dengue-related hospitalizations after 18 months, meeting the secondary end-point of the study, according to the company.
Dengue fever is a tropical disease so painful it is also known as “breakbone fever.” In 2023, there were 11 cases of locally-acquired dengue fever in Florida. Cases have also occasionally been reported in Texas, Arizona, California, and Hawaii.
In the U.S., the FDA approved one dengue fever vaccine called Dengvaxia in May 2019. However, its manufacturer has since discontinued production, and it is no longer available in the United States. It can take a long time for the FDA to approve new drugs and vaccines. Many people have died waiting for the FDA to approve life-saving drugs. For example, at least a hundred thousand people died waiting years for the FDA to approve beta blockers.
“A new mosquito-breeding facility in France is producing 1.5 million sterile mosquitoes per week to help control the population of invasive tiger mosquitoes, which can carry diseases like dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. The owner, a startup called Terratis, plans to scale up production to 40 million mosquitoes per week within two years. For comparison, Brazil’s large Wolbachia-infected mosquito factory can produce 100 million mosquito eggs per week,” notes The Doomslayer.
Scientists are also using genetically-modified fungus to catch mosquitoes that can spread diseases.
The military dictator of an African country ordered the Gates Foundation to stop releasing genetically-modified mosquitoes to fight malaria.
Releasing mosquitoes is something scientists have successfully done in other countries to fight malaria. “Conservationists are releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in Hawaii to control the spread of avian malaria, which has devastated local bird populations,” reported The Doomslayer. “A group of environmental organizations have been dropping biodegradable containers of mosquitoes into honeycreeper habitats on Maui and Kauai from helicopters….The containers fall to the ground without a top, and when they land the insects escape into the forest. Critically, these are not your typical mosquitoes. They’re all males, which don’t bite, that have been reared in a lab. More importantly, they contain a strain of bacteria called wolbachia that interferes with reproduction: When those males mate with females in the area, their eggs fail to hatch.”
Mosquitoes infested with Wolbachia bacteria have also been bred to fight dengue fever in Honduras, in hopes of replacing mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, with a strain of mosquitoes that doesn’t spread the disease.
