The Philippines became the first Asian country on Tuesday to approve the sale of the world’s first-ever dengue vaccine.
Dengvaxia, manufactured by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, secured its first regulatory approval in Mexico a fortnight ago and is currently being reviewed by around 20 countries in Asia and Latin America.
It is hoped the drug could eventually help prevent millions of deaths from dengue, the world’s fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease.
The World Health Organization says as many as 400 million people are infected worldwide every year, and two-thirds are in Asia.
“It’s a major step in the prevention of dengue and for public health,” Olivier Charmeil, head of Sanofi’s vaccines division, said in a statement. Scientists have long been stumped by dengue, which has four separate strains, forcing researchers to find a drug able to fight all of them at once.