Desi dengue vax nears completion, likely to hit markets in mid-2026
Times of India | 16 April 2025
123 Kolkata: A dengue vaccine is undergoing the third phase of clinical trials in India, Balram Bhargava, the former director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), who led India's fight against Covid and spearheaded the development of the indigenous Covaxin vaccine, told TOI on the sidelines of the inauguration of an exhibition on vaccines at Science City in Kolkata on Tuesday.
"India is developing its first indigenous tetravalent dengue vaccine, DengiAll, which is undergoing phase 3 clinical trials in collaboration with Panacea Biotec and ICMR. The phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of the Indian vaccine formulation yielded promising results," said Bhargava, who is currently the professor of cardiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.
The trial involves over 10,335 healthy adult participants across 19 sites in 18 states and union territories. Though Bhargava did not wish to comment on when it could hit the market as he was no longer with ICMR, sources said mid-next year was a very likely possibility.
The vaccine can help protect against dengue outbreaks, a common occurrence during monsoon that causes a large number of fatalities in Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu each year.
Panacea Biotec received the tetravalent dengue vaccine strain (TV003/TV005) from National Institutes of Health (NIH), US. However, with NIH now led by vaccine critic Jay Bhattacharya, National Science Chair Partha Pratim Majumder, who founded National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, said such collaborations between American and Indian medical institutions hit a pause button as collaborative grants were being frozen by the Trump administration. "Lies spread by anti-vax activists about the use of foetal cells to produce mRNA vaccine are being amplified now and getting political patronage. This is extremely unfortunate. Fortunately, the anti-vax movement has not received political backing in India. But what is happening is a huge concern as it may influence people," said Majumder.
With Union minister of state for health, family welfare, and ayush Prataprao Jadhav announcing the launch of a vaccine targeting breast, oral, and cervical cancers in women by August this year, Majumder said it was a matter of time before vaccines were developed for other types of cancer. Once the vaccine for breast, oral, and cervical cancers is available, girls aged nine to 16 will be eligible for vaccination.
Global travelling exhibition "Vaccines Injecting Hope" that tells story of global effort to develop vaccines at pandemic speed was developed by National Council of Science Museums and Science Museum Group, London.