Brazil Is Waging a War Against Rising Dengue Cases

Hi, it’s Gabriel in São Paulo. Here in Brazil we are facing a outbreak of dengue, with some areas of the country in a state of emergency amid a very hot and stormy summer. But first…

Last year in Brazil, our health regulatory agency approved the Qdenga vaccine for dengue fever. The news excited me — dengue is a painful, common mosquito-borne illness that has no specific treatment and in severe cases can even be fatal. It’s found in tropical and subtropical climates like Brazil, where cases are currently raging. But making a vaccine has been difficult. The previous vaccine available here, Dengvaxia, is only available to people who have already had a dengue infection. That group didn’t include me.

I took my first dose of Qdenga, which is made by Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceuticals, in July. I returned in November for a booster — you need two doses to complete the immunization. I was lucky to get it early. Takeda is currently unable to manufacture enough doses to immunize most of Brazil’s population of more than 200 million people. The country is planning to vaccinate only 3.2 million people this year. And by the end of January, Brazil had received 757,000 doses of Qdenga. That’s not nearly enough to go around.

Brazil has both a public health system and a private one. To address the shortage, Takeda announced earlier this month that they would stop selling the vaccine to the private healthcare network. For now, only those who have received an initial dose will be able to get it, the state news agency Agencia Brasil reported this month.