Dengue Vaccine

Davita

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Good news, reported in today's Jakpost, is a Dengue vaccine is available in Indonesia...summary below....my comments in red....

The first dengue vaccine has arrived in Indonesia, bringing hopes of curbing one of the most challenging diseases in the country.
The vaccine, named Dengxavia, is a result of 20 years of research and experiments by Sanofi Pasteur, the world’s largest vaccine producer.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has endorsed the vaccine, saying that it represents a major step in controlling the disease as there is no established cure for dengue fever
The (Minister Elizabeth Soepardi) said the government needed to test the vaccine, even though Sanofi Pasteur had done clinical trials, so the government could approve an increase in the health budget for the roll out of the vaccine....WTF... I imagine those regulators discussing how to inflate the price so they can grab those extra Rupiahs that Sri Mulyani has convinced the public pay to the taxman.

The
market price of the vaccine is reported at more than Rp 900,000 ($70) per injection, not including tax, and the vaccine has to be given in three injections spaced out over one year.
 
Ohferchrissake. That makes me want to go stomp on something. I did some research a few years ago on how clinical trials work, for an article I was writing on malaria. The procedures are very carefully documented, and drugs only advance from one phase of testing to another after careful review of the data.

If the Indonesian government wants to assign a public health expert or two to review the dengue vaccine trials and verify that they were satisfactorily carried out and that the results are valid, no big deal - I can't imagine that would hold things up for long.

But "the government needs to test the vaccine"? Do they really think they are going to uncover something that Sanofi Pasteur missed? Assuming accurate reporting on the part of Jakpo, that's unconscionable and short-sighted. They should be ashamed of themselves.
 
JakPost said:
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.901961)]The first-ever dengue vaccine manufactured by multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur can be used by people aged between 9 and 16 years old. [/COLOR]


*Sigh* Guess it will not be available for adults for a while yet... Hopefully my wife will go along with getting our daughter vaccinated. A friend of ours actually died from dengue, though it appeared to have been an African strain rather than a local one.
 
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/health/dengue-vaccine-increase-disease/

From what I have read , dengue is different than many diseases. It is still heavily location strain dependent. This has only been approved for six countries, none of them really well developed countries, but heavy sufferers.

It is about 60% effective in adults and 40% in children. I am a big proponent of vaccination and I would probably take it, but this isn't as well established as many might think.

At 2.7 juta I will not expect it to make much of a dent. Typhoid is very common in Indonesia with a cheaper vaccine and I don't know almost any Indonesians vaccinated for that. 2.7 juta does sound cheaper than what they first announced for the Philippine islands.
 
jukung11 said:
dengue is different than many diseases. It is still heavily location strain dependent.

Oh well, that may change things then. I didn't know that - I thought there were 3 strains, regardless of location. But I'm not a medical expert.
 
I am a bit of a naysayer on new vaccines, car models and ios updates. I like to wait at least 6 months or a year. 60% doesn't sound great, either.
 
I think dengue has four serotypes, but soit. I am also not sure what you guys mean by "location strain dependent"? (Not to nitpick, but that is definitely not a scientific term.) That certain types of Dengue only occur in certain locations?

Anyway, they are pretty late since they announced the introduction of the vaccine already for 2015. Now of course Zika got all the attention since then. (South America being one of the most affected continents.)

With this type of disease, and a vaccine which can do quite some harm and which is not even effective in half of the people, it is rather risky. (A vaccine mimicks the disease, but in case of dengue a second infection can have much worse effects.)

So the theory is that you want to vaccinate people who already had dengue before. But you can't really know that, since the first occurrence of the disease is most often asymptomatic. (I.e. without symptoms you don't know you have it.)
 
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I didn't realise Dengue was 3 varieties till I got my second dose, much more severe than the first, white blood cells disappearing at a rather rapid rate, I must say Pondok Indah hospital did quiet well, but the injection seems rather expensive to me, I'm wondering how the residents in the kampungs who are generally more suceptable to Dengue are going to afford this possible life saving treatment, perhaps a greater effort in destroying mosquito breeding grounds would be quite a good idea,especially in the rainy season
 
I read there is work in the area of injecting those virus (Dengue, Zilka) carrying mozzies with a bacteria which makes them immune...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/bacteria-dengue-control-mosquito-vaccine_n_935141.html

"But a novel, low-cost strategy may offer hope to the more than 2.5 billion people who live in regions that harbor the disease. According to a pair of Australian studies published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, injecting a harmless bacterium into mosquitoes that can be passed on to the insects’ offspring could thwart the ability of the dengue virus to replicate.
In effect, scientists are vaccinating mosquitoes rather than people. But the end result would be more or less the same. “If it can’t grow in a mosquito, then it can’t be transmitted between people,†said Scott O’Neill, dean of science at Monash University in Melbourne and co-author of the papers, during a press briefing on Tuesday."
 

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