AFP Press Release
DHAKA — Bangladesh will on Thursday launch the world’s largest trial of a cheap oral cholera vaccine, which could save tens of thousands of lives every year it if proves successful, health officials said.
The World Health Organization estimates that up to five million people worldwide contract cholera each year, with 120,000 of them dying as a result.
And while oral vaccines have long been available, they are considered too expensive to employ on a wide scale, according to health authorities.
The study involves 240,000 people from Mirpur, one of Dhaka’s poorest suburbs, two thirds of whom will receive two doses of the cheap Indian-made vaccine.
The remaining 80,000 people will not receive the vaccine. Both the control group and those who are given the liquid vaccine will be monitored over the next four years.
Read the entire press release.
[Note from SaneVax: The SaneVax Team congratulates Bangladesh for having the integrity to test this vaccine against an unvaccinated control group and follow the study for four years. It is the only way to determine whether a vaccine is truly doing what it was intended to do. Let’s hope they have an adequate registration and monitoring system to handle the massive volume of information required for a study of this magnitude.]
Leave a Reply