Mexico clears for use the world's first dengue fever vaccine

A sign calling for the elimination of dengue fever in Brazil.

(Image credit: Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 10 December 2015

Now that the world's first dengue vaccine has won regulatory approval in Mexico, health officials there estimate it will prevent 8,000 hospitalizations and 104 deaths a year.

As many as 400 million people around the globe are infected with dengue every year, the World Health Organization says, and it is endemic in more than 100 countries. It's the fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease in the world and has no known cure, and kids are particularly at risk of becoming infected. There are four separate strains of dengue, and the deadliest form kills 22,000 people every year.

Researchers had to come up with a vaccine that could immunize people against each strain, and clinical tests of 40,000 participants from 15 countries found that the vaccine can immunize two-thirds of people 9 years old and up. The vaccine, Dengvaxia, is manufactured by the French company Sanofi, which has requested regulatory approval in 20 countries across Latin America and Asia. The price hasn't been decided yet, but the head of Sanofi's vaccines division says it could generate more than $1 billion a year in revenue, Agence France-Presse reports. Mexico's National Vaccination Council will soon convene to determine if the country will start giving residents Dengvaxia for free, said Mikel Arriola, the head of the regulatory agency. "It's a great step forward," he told AFP.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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