Foreign Desk: Indian pharmaceutical company Indian Immunological Limited (IIL) has announced the launch of the dengue vaccine in the market. The company officials also said that the first stage trial of the vaccine has already been completed.
The managing director of the company IIL, based in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, the southern state of India, K. Anand Kumar, said that around 90 volunteers, all between the ages of 18 and 50, participated in the first phase of the vaccine trial. No adverse side effects were observed in any of them after vaccination.
Anand Kumar said, ‘Our first stage trial is almost at the end. At least a few more trials will be conducted after this is completed. Because it is not possible to get complete information about the effectiveness of a vaccine in the first trial.
It will take at least two years to complete all the trials. Therefore, we hope to be able to bring the dengue vaccine to the market by January 2026.
The special virus used by IIL to prepare the vaccine was provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US government’s healthcare agency, Anand Kumar said.
Dengue is another name for fear in the Indian subcontinent during monsoons. Over the past few years, widespread infection and death from this mosquito-borne disease has become a regular occurrence every monsoon season.
According to the data of the Union Health Ministry of India, from January 1 to July 31 this year, 31 thousand 464 people were infected with dengue in India and at least 36 people died.