Ministry of Health licenses dengue fever, shingles and pneumococcal vaccines 23

According to Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dac Phu, former Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine (Ministry of Health), the licensing of these three vaccines is in line with the policy of the Ministry of Health. The Licensing Council has also reviewed and evaluated the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines before they are put into use in Vietnam. The newly licensed vaccines are the Qdenga vaccine to prevent dengue fever, the Shingrix vaccine to prevent shingles, and the new generation vaccine Pneumovax 23 to prevent 23 strains of pneumococcus.

“The dengue fever, herpes zoster and pneumococcal 23 vaccines have been used in many countries around the world, and their licensing in Vietnam is very good news for the people,” Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dac Phu shared.

Dr. Bach Thi Chinh, Medical Director of the VNVC Vaccination System, said that efforts are being made to soon bring these new generation vaccines to serve the Vietnamese people. All three new vaccines are produced by major pharmaceutical companies in the world, Takeda (Japan), GSK (Belgium) and MSD (USA). Specifically, the Qdenga vaccine against dengue fever produced by Takeda pharmaceutical company has a protective effect of more than 80%, against all four serotypes of dengue virus, for children aged 4 years and older. The vaccination schedule is 2 doses, 3 months apart.

Shingrix vaccine to prevent shingles produced by GSK pharmaceutical company is over 97% effective, for people aged 50 and over with normal health or for people aged 18 and over with high risk of shingles due to immunodeficiency. The vaccination schedule is 2 injections 2-6 months apart.

Pneumovax 23 vaccine, produced by MSD pharmaceutical company, has a protective effect of more than 90%, for children from 2 years old and adults with a 1-dose vaccination schedule.

“The use of dengue fever, herpes zoster, and pneumococcal 23 vaccines will help reduce the number of cases and deaths in both children and adults, reduce hospital overload and post-treatment care costs. People do not need to go abroad to get advanced vaccines but can benefit from them right in the country,” Dr. Chinh assessed.

According to Dr. Bach Thi Chinh, every year Vietnam has hundreds of thousands of infections and dozens of deaths due to dengue fever in children and adults. However, for many years there has been no vaccine to prevent it, and measures to control the source of infection such as destroying the intermediate mosquitoes that transmit the disease have encountered many difficulties. Dengue fever has 4 serotypes that cause the disease, and does not create cross-immunity, so each person can get the disease 4 times in their life and the subsequent infections will be more severe due to the influence of cross-immune complexes.

Shingles is a disease caused by the Varicella Zoster virus, which is also the cause of chickenpox. The disease leaves many complications for people over 50 years old and especially those with many underlying diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, diseases requiring long-term use of corticosteroids, cancer using immunosuppressive drugs, HIV, high-risk subjects such as pregnant women... In particular, after the blisters caused by shingles have healed, the patient still suffers from prolonged pain, called post-herpetic neuralgia, reduced ability to work, greatly affecting psychology, sleep, complicated and expensive treatment, and at the same time affecting the quality of life.

Pneumococcus is the most common cause of invasive pneumococcal diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, sepsis as well as non-invasive pneumococcal diseases such as otitis media, rhinopharyngitis, sinusitis... with a mortality rate of 10 - 20%. The disease is especially dangerous for high-risk groups such as children under 5 years old, adults over 65 years old, people with weakened immune systems due to chronic diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, tuberculosis, cardiovascular diseases, cancer... with a mortality rate of up to 50%.