The World Health Organization, following a report issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), stated that dengue carries a significant burden on public health in countries where it is endemic and, due to climate change, and urbanization, it is expected that this will continue to increase. Therefore, it recommends using Takeda’s dengue vaccine in places with a high disease burden and high transmission intensity, in order to achieve maximum impact on public health. Following these recommendations, the Government of the province of Salta has already acquired, through the Ministry of Health, 300 thousand doses for 150 thousand complete schemes, which will be applied in the departments of Orán, San Martín and Rivadavia, since December, to people between 25 and 39 years old.
The World Health Organization, following a report issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), stated that dengue carries a significant burden on public health in countries where it is endemic and, due to climate change, and urbanization, it is expected that this will continue to increase. Therefore, it recommends using Takeda’s dengue vaccine in places with a high disease burden and high transmission intensity, in order to achieve maximum impact on public health. Following these recommendations, the Government of the province of Salta has already acquired, through the Ministry of Health, 300 thousand doses for 150 thousand complete schemes, which will be applied in the departments of Orán, San Martín and Rivadavia, since December, to people between 25 and 39 years old.
Present at the conference to launch the dengue vaccine, Dr. Tomas Orduna, a tropical infectious disease doctor, former head of Tropical Medicine and Travel Medicine at the Muñiz Hospital and member of the Mundo Sano Foundation Scientific Committee, spoke with El Tribuno about the disease and the vaccine that will counteract it.
When it comes to dengue, can people think that they get the vaccine and that’s it?
Beyond an excellent tool that arrives, such as the vaccine, which is not 100% effective either, we all have to continue fighting mosquito breeding sites that have an impact on other things: not only less dengue, but also less Zika, less chicungunya and less urban yellow fever. This year in the country we had 130 thousand cases registered, there is dengue in the Buenos Aires suburbs and it is the first year of continuity in transmission, that is, without interruptions, there was dengue all year round. In other words, we are facing an endemo-epidemic disease for which the first step is community awareness about prevention.
Salta was a pioneer in acquiring the vaccine, what do you think of that?
Which is very remarkable and that there are no possibilities for the development of a country without a present state. Public health requires the commitment of the national, provincial and municipal states. There is no other possibility.
Without stopping the cycle, how much risk is there of having dengue hemorrhagic fever?
Since 2009 we have only talked about severe dengue; hemorrhagic shock is a possibility of severe dengue, dengue shock is another, then there are myocarditis, encephalitis, hepatitis, all serious. There are several pre-existing factors that can favor severe dengue, the elderly, pregnant women, and then there is the famous issue of whether I have already had dengue, that is, contact with some of the four serotypes of the disease. At this point you have to be very rational: if I already had dengue it does not mean that if I have dengue again I am condemned to die, or even to have a serious case of dengue. If we consider that for 400 million infections in the world, according to the WHO, with 100 million cases with symptoms, the final lethal result is 20 thousand people and 500 thousand people seriously ill, the percentage of deaths is minimal and I say it with everything I respect.
And why so much panic about the second infection?
Perhaps the fault lies with the Health teams, for giving excessive importance to the issue of the second infection, which has made people afraid of having dengue again. Although it is one of the factors that can contribute to having severe dengue, it is not decisive and the numbers confirm it.
What role does hygiene have in prevention?
It is the most important. Everyone has to work at home, but above all the organized community has to do it because the mosquito flies 100 meters and if I clean my house and the neighbor doesn’t, we are in the same house, as if nothing had happened.
2023-11-12 21:59:00
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