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Review
. 2023 Apr 15;8(1):55.
doi: 10.1038/s41541-023-00658-2.

Is new dengue vaccine efficacy data a relief or cause for concern?

Stephen J Thomas  1
Affiliations
Review

Is new dengue vaccine efficacy data a relief or cause for concern?

Stephen J Thomas. NPJ Vaccines. .

Abstract

Dengue is a major global public health problem requiring a safe and efficacious vaccine as the foundation of a comprehensive countermeasure strategy. Despite decades of attempts, the world has a single dengue vaccine licensed in numerous countries, but restrictions and conditions of its use have deterred uptake. Recently, clinical efficacy data has been revealed for two additional dengue vaccine candidates and the data appears encouraging. In this perspective I discuss dengue, the complexities of dengue vaccine development, early development setbacks, and how the latest data from the field may be cause for measured optimism. Finally, I provide some perspectives on evaluating dengue vaccine performance and how the pursuit of the perfect dengue vaccine may prevent advancement of vaccines which are good enough.

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Conflict of interest statement

S.J.T. is an academic physician and scientist with federal grants and industry support for a wide variety of dengue research initiatives. He has/is supporting dengue countermeasure development efforts as a consultant, advisory board member, or blinded case adjudication committee member for GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Takeda, and/or Merck and was/is compensated for his time. S.J.T. has a patent related to dengue vaccines and all rights were assigned to the U.S. government.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. LIve attenuated dengue vaccine constructs.
DENV genome components of Sanofi, Takeda, and NIH/Bhutantan/MSD dengue vaccine candidates with the location of known attenutating mutations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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