Brazil Plans to Get
Dengue Vaccine in Four
Years
Brazil's Ministry of
Health announced
Thursday that the
country is expected to
import a U.S. technology
for producing
anti-dengue-fever
vaccine.
Reinaldo Guimaraes, the
ministry's secretary of
science, technology and
energy supplies, told
the media that the
government has charged
the Sao
Paulo-headquartered
Butantan Institute to
negotiate with U.S.
researchers who have
been developing
anti-dengue-fever
vaccine for a deal to
purchase the technology.
He said he will study
the possibility of
getting a loan from the
country's National
Economic and Social
Development Bank to buy
the technology.
Guimaraes said the U.S.
researchers have not
developed a "ready"
vaccine and in
experiments on animals
and humans, the vaccine
has shown "promising"
results, but it still
needs "three or four
years" to prove its full
effectiveness.
He said if the
technology is acquired,
the Butantan Institute
will be charged with the
task to improve the
technology.
Dengue fever is a viral
infection spread by the
Aedes Aegypti mosquito.
Most mainstream dengue
cases are not fatal, but
the hemorrhagic variant,
which causes severe
internal bleeding as
blood vessels collapse,
kills one in 20 of the
infected.
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