16 January 2023 12:01 am
Takeda recently announced that the European Commission (EC) granted marketing authorisation for the company’s dengue vaccine QDENGA (Dengue Tetravalent Vaccine [Live, Attenuated]) (TAK-003) for the prevention of dengue disease in individuals from four years of age in the European Union (EU).
QDENGA should be used in accordance with official recommendations. The approval follows the positive recommendation from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) in October 2022.
“With the increasing ease of travel today, our once expansive world has become that much smaller, increasing the risk of dengue disease for those living in dengue-endemic areas and for those travelling to these regions,” said Gary Dubin, M.D., President of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda.
“The EC’s approval marks an important turning point for QDENGA, as we are one step closer to achieving our aspiration to help reduce the global burden of dengue. We are proud to introduce QDENGA in many parts of the EU, offering healthcare providers a new tool in dengue prevention for their patients living in the EU and traveling to endemic regions around the world.”
The worldwide incidence of dengue has risen eightfold in the past 20 years and it continues to rise, fuelled by climate change and urbanisation. Today, dengue threatens about half the world’s population with a risk of infection in over 125 countries and the disease is endemic in most of the European overseas countries, territories and departments located in tropical areas.