Researchers recently conducted a controlled human challenge study that suggests an experimental dengue vaccine can give healthy volunteers full protection, urging experts to use this evidence to accelerate the development of a dengue vaccine.
This is one of the first human challenge studies that has been done for dengue fever, reports the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This kind of study may be a new, important tool for testing experimental dengue fever vaccines. This is extremely useful, since large-scale trials inside areas that are endemic with the virus can be costly and risky.
These healthy volunteers received injections of a weakened strain of the virus. This test could help the scientists accelerate the research, development, and design of the dengue fever vaccine.
This is crucial to the world health scene. Dengue is one of the most common viral infections transmitted through mosquitoes. Approximately 390 million people contract dengue fever each year.
The virus typically doesn’t cause symptoms beyond a mild fever. Unfortunately, there is a life-threatening dengue shock syndrome that can occur, killing over 2 million people every year.
As of today, there is no vaccine that is approved for dengue fever. There are several experimental and candidate vaccines that are in the middle of clinical trials.
