Race for the cure: Hawaii Biotech Inc. leads in the global race for a dengue fever vaccine. (Hawaii Health Care News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included): An article from: Hawaii Business
SPMC chief of hospital Dr. Leopoldo Vega said the study is still in its initial phase of the experiment and the formulation of the vaccine is still in the early stages.
"If this will succeed, this will be a big breakthrough for us," he said. Vega said among the reasons SPMC is considered as a pilot area are the expertise of the hospital, the size of the population in the region, and the number of dengue cases in the area.
HAWAII BIOTECH BEGINS PHASE 1 CLINICAL TRIAL FOR DENGUE VACCINE.: An article from: Biotech Business
Data from the Region 11 office here of the Department of Health (DoH 11) showed that there was a 17.9 percent increase in the number of dengue cases recorded in the region from January to June this year.
Dr. Eleanor Du, SPMC training head of the Department of Pediatrics, said this year, the DoH reported 1,689 cases compared to last year's 1,385 cases in the same period.
Safety testing of dengue-1 and dengue-3 seeds for human challenges, unattenuated: Phase report
The mortality rate, however, decreased by 20 percent this year, with 10 deaths compared to last year with 12. Du said among the region's provinces, this city recorded the highest number of dengue cases with 1,130, followed by Davao del Norte with 220, Davao Oriental with 168, Davao del Sur with 92, and Compostela Valley with 79.
Majority of the recorded dengue cases were from children five to nine years of age, with 447 cases. Du stressed the need to clean the surroundings to prevent the spread of dengue.
"It is not enough that we do fogging operations because it will just transfer the dengue-carrying mosquitoes to another area. We need to clean our environment by throwing stagnant water from open containers to prevent these mosquitoes from breeding," she said.
"We don't expect a zero number of cases but as much as possible, let's make an effort to decrease the number of dengue cases in the region," she added.
Three others area are being considered as pilot areas for the study.
These are Northern Luzon, the National Capital Region, and Iloilo
