Something curious happened this Wednesday, when the ANMAT approved the Japanese vaccine against dengue.
While from the Takeda laboratory they came out to communicate the benefits of the immunizer, from the Ministry of Health the message spread
was pessimistic
regarding the protective power of the drug.
The position opened a kind of
sanitary crack
in which, on the one hand, the experts cited by the laboratory affirm that the vaccine is good news, although it is necessary to continue taking care of mosquitoes, while the Government relies on other specialists to emphasize that
the drug is not effective
in stopping a dengue epidemic like the one that Argentina is experiencing.
It should be remembered that the vaccine waited since October 2021 at ANMAT to be approved and that
18 months passed
until it received the go-ahead.
Another dengue vaccine, from Sanofi, has been approved since 2020 but can only be used by those who have already had the disease and is not available in the country.
The Takeda laboratory reported that, according to the results of the phase III trial, the vaccine is 61 percent
effective
in protection for symptomatic cases and reduces
hospitalizations by
84 percent .
In the current dengue epidemic in the country, which set a historical record, there have already been
50 deaths and more than 70,000 cases
.
The dominant circulation of serotype 2 has made this crisis more aggressive.
In the past, it had been serotype 1 that accounted for the majority of infections.
Specimens of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits dengue.
Photo: Reuters
In this context, the Ministry of Health indicated in its statement yesterday that in vector-borne diseases the vaccine
"is not and should not be the only prevention strategy"
, highlighting all preventive actions that arise from the community, such as the decachacharrado and the use of repellents.
A sustained argument in this regard is that the
Aedes aegypti
mosquito also transmits chikungunya and zika.
Although it is enough to look at the data on these diseases today in the country to know that the big problem does not seem to be there.
There are
1,278 cases
throughout the country of the first disease and the second
does not directly appear
in the epidemiological bulletin.
What is striking is not that they want to point to the
different attack fronts
against the epidemic -it is evident that the more tools there are, the better the results will be-, but
the tone
with which it is done.
With Covid, for example,
a vaccine was never detracted from
as much as the mask, ventilation and social distancing were important.
From the Government they highlighted the importance of the use of repellent despite the fact that at some point the vaccine will arrive.
In a way, the arguments put forward by the Ministry about the dengue vaccine seem more like
a justification
for why its approval was not accelerated in order to have it before the current and deadliest epidemic in the country broke out. .
In line with what has been stated, a priori it would seem unlikely that the Government will incorporate the dengue vaccine as a
free access health tool
in the future .
A future that due to the times that are managed will no longer be the current epidemic but those that can come from here on.
Everything indicates that dengue is here to stay.
To close the circle and demonstrate that the position on the dengue vaccine would be
the exception to the rule
, Minister Carla Vizzotti said, this Wednesday also, in another context -the 12th World Immunization Week promoted by PAHO-: "The Vaccines are a right, they are a social good and they are also a collective construction, because they benefit those who receive them and the entire community”.
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