MIAMI (Web Desk) – Researchers has revealed that an experimental vaccine developed by the US National Institutes of Health found is 100 percent effective in early trials and could speed up the pace of a vaccine against Zika.
Dengue — which is in the same family of flaviviruses as Zika — infects some 390 million people each year in more than 120 countries of the world.
The vaccine was tested in a double-blind trial study conducted in the U.S. that consisted of 41 healthy participants. The participants were either administered the vaccine or a placebo, and then infected with a mild form of the serotype 2 of the mosquito-borne virus six months later.
The vaccine, called TV003 was created by researched at the NIH from a combination of four strains of the dengue virus. These viruses were weakened, but still live.
Dengue symptoms are often mild, but more than two million people annually develop dengue hemorrhagic fever — which can involve severe headaches, pain behind the eyes, rash, pain in the joints, muscles or bones pain, and leaking blood vessels.
More than 25,000 people die of dengue hemorrhagic fever each year.
