Months after having suffered the worst dengue epidemic in Argentine history, -which this year left more than 120,000 autochthonous cases and 65 deaths in the country-, the confirmation that this spring the new vaccine approved by ANMAT will be available It arouses great expectations among thousands of Argentines who have contracted the disease and for whom reinfection could be fatal.
Spokesmen for the Takeda laboratory, the Japanese company that developed the new vaccine, confirmed that work is underway to shorten production and distribution times, so that the inoculant could be available as early as November in our country. In principle, this would only be applied in a particular way since the Ministry of Health confirmed that it does not plan to include it in the National Vaccination Calendar.
Designed to prevent any of the four dengue virus serotypes, TAK-033 can be applied to people between the ages of 4 and 60, with or without a history of dengue and without the need for a confirmatory blood test for the dengue. disease. His full schedule includes two doses to be administered 3 months apart.
Although more widely used than its predecessor, the new vaccine is contraindicated in pregnant women, lactating women, and immunosuppressed people in general.
Regarding adverse effects, clinical trials showed that the most frequent, although sporadic, were pain and redness at the injection site, headache, muscle pain, malaise, and weakness. In very rare cases, fever may occur. All these effects were temporary, according to the studies, and subsided without inconvenience.
“In the tests, it prevented 90% of hospitalizations in children from 4 to 16 years of age and for dengue hemorrhagic fever it worked 85%,” said infectologist María Paula Della Latta, noting that the Japanese vaccine “demonstrated long-term efficacy and had an acceptable safety profile.
“It is an important hope for the future but with the vaccine not everything is solved, you have to think of a comprehensive strategy,” said his colleague, the epidemiologist Ángela Gentile.
ON THE RISE
The record number of infections registered this year in Argentina was not an isolated case. In recent months, several countries around the world, including Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Malaysia and Bangladesh, have reported a significant increase in dengue infections, while the United States in August reported its first indigenous cases.
Dengue “is growing more and more. Its propagation speed is very high compared to other infectious diseases”, warned the infectologist María Soledad Areso, noting that the disease is already endemic in more than one hundred countries, and that Asia concentrates 75% of the cases globally.
The explanation for the phenomenon lies in the increase in temperature, which determines the distribution of the Aedes aegypti, the transmitting mosquito, which requires an average annual temperature of 15 degrees. “The world is warming up with climate change: more and more areas are becoming tropical and subtropical, and the mosquito feels comfortable in more territories than before,” the professional summarized.
2023-09-06 04:58:35
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