Dengue is raging in Brazil. A promising local vaccine is at least a year away

When dengue started to circulate in his small town in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, Fabio Vilella’s first thought was that he should get his 13-year-old son vaccinated. Children are especially vulnerable, and his son had dengue before, which increases the risk of severe disease. But Vilella, an environmental biologist, soon made a startling discovery: Not a single private clinic or pharmacy in the country had any vaccine left. “I’m really worried,” he says. Brazil is seeing an unprecedented surge in dengue, a viral disease that can cause excruciating pains and is sometimes fatal. An unusually hot rainy season, along with rapid, unplanned urbanization, have fueled its spread this year. Health officials have reported more than 1 million suspected cases in January and February, four times as many as in the same period in 2023, and hundreds have died. But the country has far too little vaccine to protect its population. The government cut a deal last year with the Japanese manufacturer Takeda Pharmaceuticals, but it will receive doses to fully vaccinate only 3.3 million people this year, in a country of more than 220 million. A locally produced vaccine could prove to be better and cheaper, but it will be available in 2025 at the earliest. “We are frenetically working against time,” says Esper Kallas, director of the Butantan Institute, which is developing the shot. Brazil has embraced new control strategies for the Aedes aegypti ...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news