Dengue vaccination won’t be totally effective -Health Minister

Last Updated on Wednesday, 7 August 2024, 17:36 by Writer

Guyana is hesitant to vaccinate people against dengue because of the efficacy of the jab against all of the four sub-types of the mosquito-borne virus, cost and availability of the vaccines, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said Wednesday.

With ten people already killed by dengue in 2023 and four this year, he said government would be willing to consider acquiring dengue vaccines if the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) agrees to foot the bill. “We were looking into it and if we get an organisation like PAHO to access the vaccine through their Strategic Fund and make it available at a cheaper cost, then it will become more affordable to countries in the Americas,” he said when asked by Demerara Waves Online News.

Although Brazil has been buying a lot of dengue vaccines from Japan to inoculate persons from as young as five years old, Dr Anthony is wary of the efficacy being “not as high” due to the circulation of DENV1, DENV2, DENV3, and DENV4.”That’s where there’s difficulty because the efficacy of the vaccine against different subtypes varies so we’ll look into it,” he said.

“The vaccine is quite expense and right now it’s very scarce,” he added.

Latest available official figures show that the Health Ministry has intensified mosquito eradication by fogging communities every two to three weeks. “That has taken a big toll on our budget but we have to do it and so you’ll see that as part of our supplementary that’s going to Parliament soon,” Dr Anthony said.

He also said the public health sector was testing more persons for the virus. Twenty-six thousand tests were done last year compared to 29,000 so far for 2024. “We are doing more testing and we’re trying to find people as early as possible,” he said. So far, Guyana has recorded 6,000 positive dengue cases for 2024 and of those hospitalised, four have died from January to July, 2024.