According to the Malaysian National News Agency, the WHO said today that
... it will probably take another seven years before a dengue vaccine which is safe and effective against all four strains of the dengue virus can be produced, an expert said ahead of a World Health Organisation's (WHO) Dengue Prevention and Control in Asia Pacific Conference in Chiang Mai.
Work on developing a vaccine is underway at Thailand's Mahidol University and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). The Bill Gates Foundation have given a grant of US$55 million for dengue research.
Progress has been slow:
a modern dengue vaccine was first produced at WRAIR in the late 1970s to early 1980s and co-developed by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals. The vaccine being developed at Mahidol, which received a US$10 million grant from WHO 10 years ago, is still in the process of human trials.
Owen comments: Progress is desperately slow, even where scientific leads exist for a possible vaccine. If kids in rich countries were dying of Dengue Fever, you can be sure that these leads would have been tested much more quickly.
