About Dengue Vaccine

Currently there is no vaccination available for prevention or cure of dengue fever. The recommended treatment includes taking medication for reducing the fever, bed rest and increasing fluid intake.

The fact that dengue virus (DENV) comes in four varieties of serotypes makes development of dengue fever vaccine a difficult task. A person who successfully recovers from the infection of a particular DENV serotype develops lifelong immunity only to that virus. Another point of concern about dengue vaccine is that in some cases it can even increase risk of other severe diseases by enhancing dependence on antibody.

Vaccination works by generating antibodies and starting the natural process of developing immunity against the disease. The vision of ideal dengue vaccination is a safe and effective vaccine that will cover all the serotypes of DENV without contributing to antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). Moreover, it must be easy to store and cost-effective as well.

According to Sanofi Pasteur, France- one DENV serotype completely differ from the other three. They claim that dengue fever vaccine development will be complete till 2014. The clinical trials of vaccine on human are going-on but the WHO Technical Consultation published in a journal in 2008 stated that the trials need to address adverse consequences of dengue vaccine in long term as well. Long term follow up of the vaccine are been conducted for knowing its extended effects.

Number of programs are undergoing for producing vaccination against all the four serotypes of dengue. Various vaccination producing approaches for treating dengue are undergoing testing with bit of viral protein, viruses that are alive and dead. Some of them are undergoing clinical trial for checking the safety and adverse drug reactions of the vaccines. The vaccination is expected to be commercially available by 2015. Till then the only possible way of preventing dengue virus is to avoid being bitten by Aedes mosquitoes. Be more cautious at dawn and dusk when these mosquitoes are more active.