Positive results for potential dengue vaccine in Bangladesh

A vaccine candidate against dengue has shown promising results in trials carried out in Dhaka.

Researchers from the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) and the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine carried out the trial, according to a report published in the international medical journal Lancet.

Regarding the vaccine, the report said, "TV005 is a live, attenuated tetravalent dengue vaccine. We evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of a single dose of TV005 across age groups in dengue-endemic Bangladesh."

This trial was randomised, placebo-controlled age de-escalating, and performed at a single clinical site in Dhaka. The study was double-blind and was unmasked at day 180; outcome assessors, clinic staff, and volunteers remained blind throughout.

With 3 years of follow-up, the single-dose tetravalent dengue vaccine, TV005, was well tolerated and immunogenic for all four serotypes in young children to adults, including individuals with no previous dengue exposure, the report concluded.

The trial was funded by the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)–National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), US.

Nearly 1,000 people have died of dengue in Bangladesh in recent weeks, in what authorities say is the country's most severe outbreak of the disease yet.

Extraordinarily wet monsoons have made it easier for mosquitoes that carry the dengue virus to breed in dirty and stagnant water.

Officials have struggled to contain the spread of the disease and hospitals have been critically overwhelmed.

In severe cases, dengue causes internal bleeding which can lead to death. Its symptoms include headaches, nausea, joint and muscle pain.

/KN/