Dengue Vaccine Only Gives Protection To 47 Per Cent Of M'sian Patients

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), Jan 21 (Bernama) -- The findings of a scientific study on the first dengue vaccine produced by French company, Sanofi, showed it could only give effective protection to 47 per cent of dengue patients. Malaysian Health Minister Dr S.Subramaniam said the factor of effectiveness was among several matters raised by the Technical and Scientific Committee on dengue vaccine. He said scientific data also showed the vaccine was not suitable for children under nine-year-old and could only be used for the nine to 18 years age group. "As such, the Health Ministry needed to conduct a study taking into consideration several factors before applying the vaccine on the people," he told a press conference here Wednesday. He explained that Malaysia needed an ideal vaccine to protect from all dengue serotypes or at least to tackle serotype 2. "As such it will take a longer time to study its effectiveness by the technical committee before the vaccine could be used in the country," he said. So far, only three countries, Brazil, Mexico and Philippines are using the vaccine while other countries such as Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are still studying its effectiveness. --BERNAMA