Sanofi Pasteur Expands Dengue Vaccine Clinical Program in South East Asia

Sanofi Pasteur has announced the start of clinical studies of its investigational tetravalent dengue vaccine in Singapore and Vietnam. With these studies, the company is expanding its global dengue vaccine clinical study program in Asia where trials are already ongoing in Thailand and the Philippines. These studies are aimed at advancing the development of a novel vaccine for the prevention of dengue in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Dengue has emerged as a serious public health problem in Asia-Pacific in the last decades. There are 1.8 billion people in the region at risk of dengue fever," said Chusak Prasittisuk, Coordinator Communicable Diseases Control at the World Health Organization South East- Asia Region. “WHO is committed to fostering vaccine development for the control of dengue disease in Asia.”

Currently, there is no specific treatment available against dengue fever, which is the most widespread tropical disease after malaria. Sanofi Pasteur is collaborating with the Communicable Disease Center in Singapore and the Pasteur Institute in Vietnam to conduct these clinical studies in children and adults.

“Controlling the mosquitoes that transmit dengue is necessary but not sufficient to fight against the disease. A safe and effective vaccine has been long awaited to prevent dengue epidemics,” said Professor Leo Yee Sin, director of the Communicable Disease Center in Singapore.

“Fighting against dengue is a main public health priority in Vietnam. About 100,000 people are infected each year, mostly children,” said Dr Tran Ngoc Huu, director of Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City.

Dr Melanie Saville, associate vice president, and head clinical dengue program, Sanofi Pasteur said, “An important factor to consider in the development of the vaccine is whether it can be consistently produced on a large scale. One of the main study groups of the trials are children. We want to investigate the effects of the co-administration of dengue vaccines with other childhood vaccinations.”