Vaccine breakthrough. Brazil's Butantan health research institute submitted the world's first one-dose dengue vaccine to regulators for approval this week. The vaccine was developed through a yearslong partnership with the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Butantan hailed it as a breakthrough in a year when warm temperatures have caused dengue cases and deaths to spike in the Americas.
Brazil currently uses a two-dose dengue vaccine made by Japanese firm Qdenga in its public health system, but the country was able to procure only enough jabs this year for around 3 million people to be completely vaccinated in a country of more than 200 million.
If Butantan's shot is approved, it could produce 100 million doses within three years, the institute said.