Brazil Launches First Dengue Vaccine Campaign: Drug Maker

PARIS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th August, 2016) - Brazil on Saturday launched the first public immunisation programme in the Americas against dengue fever, with 500,000 people to be injected with the world's first authorized vaccine against the disease, French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi said. The programme will be rolled out in the southern state of Parana, said the maker of the Dengvaxia vaccine, which is the result of 20 years of research and 1.5 billion Euros ($1.7 billion) of investment. "We will vaccinate all individuals 15-27 years of age in 28 municipalities and 9-44 years of age in the two municipalities with the top dengue burden in our state over the next three weeks," Parana Health Secretary Michele Caputo Neto said in a Sanofi statement.

He cited a study published in the Brazilian Journal of Health Economics indicating that implementation of the dengue immunisation strategy "could result in 74 percent reduction in disease burden in these highly-impacted municipalities within five years".