NIH-developed candidate dengue vaccine shows promise in early-stage trial

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed candidate dengue vaccine which found to be safe and to stimulate a strong immune response in most vaccine recipients. The early-stage clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the results is appeared in the January 17 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Dengue fever, prevalent in many tropical and subtropical regions of the world, is caused by any of four related viruses — DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3 and DENV-4 — that are transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitoes. The World Health Organization estimates that every year, 50 million to 100 million cases of dengue occur worldwide, resulting in 500,000 hospitalizations of patients with severe disease, many of them in children. Infection with one dengue virus results in immunity to that specific virus but not to the other three. Research shows that the likelihood of severe...