Dengue vaccine trials in Bangalore, four cities

French pharma giant Sanofi Pasteur is conducting phase-3 trial of a vaccine for dengue in five cities across the country including Bangalore, the government informed the Lok Sabha on Friday.

“The trial is being conducted in Bangalore, Ludhiana, Kolkata, Pune and Delhi. If it passes the third and fast clinical trial, the day is not far when the vaccine will be available to us,” Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

The minister expressed satisfaction over the ongoing trial of the vaccine by the French parma company, saying it was conducting phase-3 trial of the vaccine in various other countries including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Columbia, Brazil, Mexico and Latin America.  

Azad was replying to a discussion in the Lok Sabha on a calling attention motion on spread of dengue and chikungunya in the country. The members expressed concern over the spread of the two epidemics and asked the government to give details about the steps being taken by it to tackle them. During discussion on the issue, members charged the government with not taking adequate steps to control the spread of the two diseases.

They also contested the government’s figure of deaths caused by dengue, claiming it was far less than the actual number of people who died this year. At the outset of the debate, Azad stated that a total of 35,066 cases with 216 deaths were reported till November 15 this year but the case fatality rate remained low at 0.6 per cent. Nama Nageswara Rao (TDP) claimed that the dengue toll was much higher. Shailendra Kumar of Samajwadi Party (SP) also contested the government’s figure.