The WHO recommends the first vaccine against dengue due to the increase in its transmission in Latin America

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended the first vaccine against dengue, developed by the Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda, at a time when the transmission of this disease is increasing in regions such as Latin America due to climate change, among other factors. .

The quadrivalent TAK-003 vaccine, based on a weakened version of the virus that causes dengue, will be recommended for children between six and 16 years of age in areas where this disease has become a major public health problem, the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The substance proved its effectiveness in tests carried out among patients aged 4 to 16 years in Asia and Latin America, explained Finnish scientist Hanna Nohynek, president of the group that advises the WHO on immunization issues and which has met these days in Geneva to analyze global vaccination strategies.

Approved in Europe

Also called Qdenga, the TAK-003 vaccine has also recently been approved for use in Europe, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia and Thailand, among other markets.

“It has great potential, at a time when many countries are suffering large outbreaks of the disease and the situation is worsening with climate change,” said Nohynek.. The aedes mosquito, increasingly in more places

Due to global warming, the Aedes mosquito, which transmits dengue and other diseases, can live at altitudes above sea level and increasingly higher latitudes, threatening populations in highlands, mountains and temperate climates that were previously virtually protected from this type. of epidemics.

This summer, the WHO even warned European countries to prepare for possible dengue outbreaks derived from heat waves that are being experienced with increasing duration and intensity.

Despite the recommendation announced this Monday, the expert stressed that the vaccine is in principle recommended for types 1 and 2 (the most dangerous) of the dengue virus, since in the other two known ones, 3 and 4, there are still “uncertainty” about its effectiveness.

Nohynek stressed that the group he chairs to advise the WHO “recommends that the vaccine be considered to be introduced in areas with a serious incidence of dengue and high intensity of transmission.”

Regarding the age of immunization, countries should check at what age of childhood or adolescence there are more serious cases that require hospitalization, and proceed to immunize those who are one or two years younger.. Flu symptoms that can be lethal

Infection with the dengue virus usually produces symptoms similar to those of the flu (high fever, headaches, eye and muscle pain, nausea, vomiting…), but on some occasions it can progress to serious symptoms of the disease, the dreaded “dengue hemorrhagic fever.”

There could be 390 million infections annually

The number of cases diagnosed annually has increased tenfold, from just half a million in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2019, although medical studies estimate that there could be 390 million annual infections (many of them asymptomatic), according to the WHO.

Other studies highlight that regions where some 3.9 billion people live, almost half of the world's population, are in areas at risk of dengue outbreaks.

In Europe, cases of local transmission have been recorded since the last decade in countries such as France or Croatia, while in America, where 3.1 million infections were reported in 2019, the most affected nations are Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay or Peru, among others