Recently, the Department of Health announced the availability of the Dengvaxia, the world’s first-ever dengue vaccine, in the Philippine market next week. In fact, the Philippines is the first country in Asia to approve the first dengue vaccine in the world.
The said vaccine is manufactured solely by Sanofi Pasteur, a French pharmaceutical company, who worked on this cure for 20 years.
It was reported that most of the dengue cases are from the Metro Manila (National Capital Region), Central Luzon, and CALABARZON areas. With that, the first recipients of the anti-dengue vaccine in the country will be the 1 million Filipino children across the 3 regions, the Department of Health (DOH) confirms.
According to Rappler’s report, Health Secretary Garin said that President Benigno Aquino III has approved the provision of dengue vaccine to 1,077,623 9-year old Filipino students who are currently enrolled in the National Capital Region, Central Luzon (Region III), and Calabarzon (Region IV-A) areas.
Although, the first dengue vaccine is expensive, DOH Secretary Garin also mentioned a 34% discount was given to our country, after the President Aquino III met with another company executive in France.
The Health secretary also said that the Philippines has been spending P16 billion every year to combat dengue-related cases.
Dengue is a disease common in tropical and sub-tropical countries and is transmitted through the bite of the Aedes mosquito.
Additionally, the government has already set P3 billion in the 2016 budget for the dengue vaccine.
Meanwhile, to reiterate, the dengue vaccine is also recommended for people 9 to 45 years old.
Hopefully, this will lessen the number of dengue cases in the coming years.
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