• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 11 / 13 / 2010

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By late 2009 it was estimated that worldwide there were about 10 projects of candidates of bovine against dengue, an illness which incidence has grown spectacularly around the world in the last times, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
 
Around 24 thousand deaths are attributed every year to the havocs of dengue, while the 40% of world’s population - more than two thousand million people – are at risk of contracting the disease.
 
WHO also estimates that every year nearly 50 million people are infected, children in their majority, mainly inhabitants from countries of southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Oriental Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific.
 
Considered an endemic disease in several nations of the tropical and subtropical strips of the Planet, patients infected have been reported in countries of the southern Europe like Spain, Italy, and Greece, as well as in the south of the United States.
 
Although processes like accelerated urbanization and travels are suggested as the most probable causes in the spreading of the last epidemic outbreaks, factors like temperature rising and heavy rains associated to the climatic change could favor the referred outbreak.
 
A Vaccine that Lingers   
 
The long expected vaccine still lingers, although different teams of investigators and pharmaceutical industries work hard in several geographical points. Among these appear groups from the Latin American area, region in true epidemic alert due to the boom in the number of cases and deaths in almost all nations, although Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina have reported the most serious situations.
 
Everything reveals that among the most advanced designs appear that of the French pharmacist Sanofi-Avantis whose vaccine line, Sanofi-Pasteur has been working for more than 15 years in creating a tetravalent immunogenic that acts against the four serotypes of the virus.
 
Having worldwide recognition as leader in its field, Pasteur-Avantis has gone through phases I and II of the creative process, and has announced that they are entering the third phase.
 
If the evolution of their experimentation in humans and in nations where the illness is endemic keeps positive results, the entity considers that their vaccine can be ready for commercialization and distribution in year 2013.
 
Cuba, country that disposes considerable resources in the control of the mosquito Aedes aegypti, vector of dengue. Cuba counts on the necessary scientific and human potential to also reach an effective vaccine, equally tetravalent, in coming years.
 
Despite the work against the vector has kept the disease controlled and at present Cubans are not affected by the regional epidemic, the risks are not underestimated and the work for the vaccine advances.
 
Joint efforts are being made by the Institute of Tropical Medicine Pedro Kouri, the Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, and the Institute of Immunoassay.
 
Likewise, the Colombian press reported in October that a team of scientists from the University of Santander, in that South American nation, expects to reach its vaccine for 2015.
 
A total of 130 thousand cases of dengue have been reported in that nation so far in 2010, with 130 deaths, a figure that triples the total of the entire incidence of 2009, as informed Maria Consuelo Miranda, regional director for the clinical development of Sanofi Pasteur in Colombia.
 
In May 2010, a study carried out by scientists of the Imperial College of London, lead by Professor Gavin R. Screaton, announced a discovery that should shorten distances in attaining a more effective vaccine.
 
The British specialists identified the antibodies that, in the event of a second dengue infection, help on the proliferation and increase of the illness in a person.
 
That is, they discovered that the immunologic system itself on doing the opposite of what it’s supposed to do makes the disease more virulent.
 
The worsening of the symptoms in cases of being reinfected were known, but not the process responsible for this.
 
To identify the antibodies responsible for the quick expansion of the virus should pave the way to the vaccine, think the discoverers of the mechanism.
 
To fight the proliferation of the vector   
 
WHO  has urged people to fight the vector, the dangerous striped-legged mosquito. Although they only put all their hopes in the vaccine, as the absolute cure, without denying its transcendence, it’s better to keep in mind that specialized recommendation.
 
The Cuban experience, verifiable for those who want to learn from it, proves its effectiveness.
 
Cubasi Translation Staff