After five years of piloting the vaccine against dengue fever, the vaccine has proved its effective to prevent hospitalization because of the disease and serious infections.
As the dengue fever is plaguing in the country, the Department of Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health October 8 informed the initial test and experiment of the new vaccine to help prevent dengue.
The vaccine proves effective on children older than 9 year old. The vaccine helps prevent 81 percent of hospitalization and 93 percent of serious cases. Yet the percentage is lower in children below 9 year old helping reducing 44 percent of hospitalization and 67 percent of serious cases. Accordingly, it needs to have more research on the group of children under 9 year old. More, the side effects after receiving a vaccine are same or milder than other vaccines.
The above-mentioned figures are result of clinical tests to assess effectiveness and safety of the vaccine implemented in the Mekong delta provinces of Tien Giang’s My Tho Town and An Giang’s Long Xuyen Town by Sanofi-Pasteur group liaising with Pasteur Institute in HCMC. Vietnam is one of five Asian nations partaking in the clinical tests on 2,336 children aged from 2 to 14 who volunteered to inject the vaccine.
On the same day, the Department said that Hanoi is entering the peak season of dengue with nearly 3,500 infection since the beginning of the year 2015 yet without deaths. To curb the rise in the number of dengue patients in October and eliminate in November, Hanoi is applying synchronous measures against the disease. In addition to annual spending for the disease prevention, the capital city allocated additional VND5 billion (US$225,269) for dengue prevention and in three last months of the year, Hanoi will spend more VND14 billion (US$630,710) for dengue prevention.
