Vaccines provide additional tools to help control the disease, as the world loses billions of dollars due to the burden of dengue fever.
Professor Vu Sinh Nam, former Deputy Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health, said that there is no specific treatment for dengue fever, mainly symptomatic treatment and monitoring and care for many days to prevent avoid getting worse. Meanwhile, dengue virus often creates large epidemics, making treatment difficult and can cause death for patients.
The prevention process also faces many challenges such as: spending resources to find solutions to prevent disease-causing viruses but with no results; There is no comprehensive solution to manage the disease.
Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the WHO’s strategic advisory group of experts on immunization (SAGE) recommend that countries with a high burden of dengue fever adopt additional vaccine measures.
A medical expert commented in the magazine Lancet in February, it is expected that vaccines will become a new weapon to deal with this epidemic. Professor Nam believes that vaccines are an urgent solution, helping to proactively prevent dengue fever early.
A dengue vaccine used in Brazil. Image: Takeda
Currently, the dengue vaccine has been put into use in Europe, Brazil, Indonesia… In which, Brazil will apply it in the expanded vaccination program from March 2023, trying to prevent the increasing number of cases. High. From the beginning of the year to March 15, this country has recorded 1.6 million confirmed and suspected cases.
In Vietnam, a number of vaccines are participating in clinical trials and there are vaccines awaiting licensing. The licensing process is carefully reviewed by authorities to ensure safety before use for people.
Professor Nam hopes that dengue fever vaccine will soon be available in Vietnam. According to him, vaccines can be combined with traditional methods such as killing mosquitoes, controlling outbreaks, using mosquito nets and wearing long-sleeved clothes… to increase the ability to prevent epidemics. The measure may be useful in a context where people have not taken dengue prevention measures and some local governments have not stepped in strongly to fight the epidemic; In 2022, many localities will lack drugs to treat severe cases, putting great pressure on the health system.
Dengue fever has been a top concern for countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America since the beginning of the year. In the first quarter, Thailand recorded more than 20,000 cases, double the same period in 2023; of which 27 died. Singapore has more than 5,000 cases and 7 deaths. Latin America and the Caribbean region has more than 3.5 million cases and more than 1,000 deaths, three times more than the same period in 2023.
In Vietnam, in the first quarter, many localities recorded hundreds of cases, calculated at the end of the 2023 epidemic cycle. Hanoi recorded more than 500 cases, an average of 10-17 cases a week, an increase compared to the same period last year. period 2023; Ho Chi Minh City recorded a total of more than 2,100 cases by the end of March; Can Tho has 168 cases, no deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) recorded statistics from the Ministry of Health, saying that nationwide there were about 12,000 cases as of March 3, of which from February 26 to March 3, 857 cases were recorded. About 690 cases required hospitalization.
In November 2023, the World Economic Forum estimated that dengue caused an economic burden of up to 8.9 billion USD.