Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - The head of the Ministry of Health (SSA), Mercedes Juan Lopez, said Mexico could be the first country in the world to have the vaccine against Dengue, following the Monday signing of an agreement between the Health Secretariat and Sanofi Pasteur, the French company that developed the vaccine.

Dengue is a flu-like illness spread by the bite of an infected mosquito, mainly the Aedes Aegypti – a day-time biter that lives in close proximity to humans in urban areas. Often identified as the world's fastest spreading tropical disease, symptoms include high fever, nausea, rashes, backache, headaches, and severe joint pain. Some cases can progress to Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF), which causes severe internal bleeding as blood vessels collapse, and kills up to 20 percent of its patients.

An estimated 220 million people are infected with dengue annually, and 2 million of them, mostly children, develop the hemorrhagic form, which can be fatal. Up until now, dengue has had no cure, but the expected vaccine can prevent the development of the disease in millions of people.

The Health Minister said that Mexico participated in Sanofi Pasteur's trial studies, which began in 2004 and wrapped up last September with a final clinical trial on 20,875 children aged 9-16 in five Latin American countries, including Mexico.

In November, during the 28th annual meeting of Mexico's Federal Health System in Mazatlan, Mikel Arriola, the head of the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris,) announced that Mexico would be among the first countries in the world to get the new dengue vaccine.

A Sanofi Pasteur official recently reported that the company is ready to distribute the drug, which has proved effective against the four types of dengue, and that they hope to have 40 or 50 million doses ready to distribute to countries that request it by the end of this year.

The urgency for governments to have a dengue vaccine is that the disease not only impairs the health of its citizens, but also represents a severe economic impact. In Mexico, prevention, control, ambulatory care and hospitalization of patients with dengue exceeds $328 million USD annually.