Sanofi Pasteur’s Dengvaxia, the first dengue fever vaccine in the world, recently gained marketing authorization in Mexico.
This marks a significant step forward in preventing the spread of dengue and reducing the disease’s burden in countries that are endemic with dengue. Mexico’s Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (COFEPRIS) has given the tetravalent vaccine the approval it needs to be used in the four dengue virus serotypes.
“When Sanofi set out to develop a dengue vaccine 20 years ago together with local and global public health and scientific communities, it was with the intention of developing an innovative vaccine to tackle this global public health need,”
Sanofi CEO Olivier Brandicourt said. “Today, with this first marketing authorization of Dengvaxia, we have achieved our goal of making dengue the next vaccine-preventable disease. This is a historic milestone for our company, for the global public health community and, most importantly, for half the world’s population who lives at risk of dengue.”
Eligible recipients must live in countries that are dengue endemic and include adults, adolescents and preadolescents, all between the ages of 9 and 45.
“Dengue is a growing health threat in Mexico and many other tropical and subtropical countries in Latin America and Asia,” José Luis Arredondo García, associate director of clinical research in Mexico’s National Institute of Pediatrics, said. “The first vaccine approved to prevent dengue fever is a major innovation and a public health breakthrough. Dengvaxia will be a critical addition to the integrated dengue prevention and control efforts. It will be an essential tool to boost on-going community efforts to relieve the long-standing suffering that this disease continues to bring to people in endemic countries like ours.”
