French pharma giant to market Dengue fever vaccine

A vaccine for dengue fever will soon be on the market, according to Sanofi Pasteur which has opened a factory to produce the medicine near the French city of Lyon. The French pharmaceutical company is targeting the 400 million cases it estimates to exist worldwide.

Reuters/James Gathany

Sanofi has invested 350 million euros and built a factory, which already employs 150 people, in the town of Neuville-sur-Saône, despite the fact that the drug is still under development.

The vaccine is expected to be on the market in 2015, although production for testing should start next January.

• Dengue fever is transmitted by mosquitoes and 50-100 million cases are recorded every year.
• More than 100 countries are affected, mostly poorer ones.
• Half the world’s population lives in areas where dengue fever is a risk.
• The first significant outbreak in Europe since 1920 affected 1,300 people in Madeira, Portugal, this autumn.
• Several thousand people die from dengue fever every year in Asian and Latin American countries, according to the World Health Organisation.

British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline is working on a vaccine against malaria, which kills more than 650,000 people every year.