Vaccine Approved for Brain Fever
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: November 4, 2013
The World Health Organization has approved a new vaccine for a strain of encephalitis that kills thousands of children and leaves many survivors with permanent brain damage.
The move allows United Nations agencies and other donors to buy it.
The disease, called Japanese encephalitis or brain fever,
is caused by a mosquito-transmitted virus that can live in pigs, birds
and humans. Less than 1 percent of those infected get seriously ill, but
it kills up to 15,000 children a year and disables many more. Up to
four billion people, from southern Russia to the Pacific islands, are at
risk; it is more prevalent near rice paddies.
There is no cure. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/health/vaccine-approved-for-brain-fever.html?_r=0
The low-cost vaccine, approved last month, is the first authorized by
the agency for children and the first Chinese-made vaccine it has
approved.
It is made by China National Biotec Group and was tested by PATH, a nonprofit group in Seattle with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr. Margaret Chan, W.H.O.’s director-general, said she hoped that
approval would encourage other vaccine makers from China and elsewhere
to enter the field.
China had given the vaccine domestically to 200 million children over many years but had never sought W.H.O. approval.
India, which previously bought 88 million doses from China, launched the first locally produced version last month.
A Novartis vaccine for Japanese encephalitis, Ixiaro, is approved by the
Food and Drug Administration. But travel clinics charge $200 or more
for it. Two weeks after the W.H.O. approved the Chinese vaccine, the
F.D.A. granted Ixiaro’s maker seven years of exclusivity.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/health/vaccine-approved-for-brain-fever.html?_r=0
