India’s home-grown dengue vaccine could be ready before the 2027 season, ICMR says

India’s first home-grown dengue vaccine could be available before the 2027 dengue season, the Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said, provided the final trials succeed and regulators approve it.

The vaccine, DengiAll, developed by Panacea Biotec with the ICMR, is in Phase 3 trials, the last stage before approval. Those trials, which began in August 2024, are testing a single dose in about 10,000 healthy adults at sites across the country. The ICMR chief also said human trials would begin soon for a vaccine against Kyasanur Forest Disease, or monkey fever, a tick-borne illness found in the Western Ghats.

Why four strains matter

A new study by the ICMR’s National Institute of Virology and the National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control has found all four types, or serotypes, of the dengue virus circulating at the same time in eight States and Union Territories. That matters because surviving one type of dengue protects a person only against that type, and a second infection with a different type raises the risk of severe, sometimes fatal, dengue. A useful vaccine must therefore protect against all four; DengiAll is designed to.

The bigger picture

Dengue is spread by the Aedes mosquito, which breeds in clean, stagnant water in coolers, pots, tyres and overhead tanks, and cases peak in the weeks after the monsoon. India records lakhs of cases every year, and the true number is widely believed to be higher. There is no specific medicine for dengue; treatment is supportive, which makes prevention all the more important.

What you can do now

Empty and scrub containers that hold water at least once a week, use mosquito nets and repellents, and see a doctor if a fever comes with severe body ache, pain behind the eyes, a rash or bleeding gums. Avoid painkillers such as ibuprofen and aspirin unless a doctor says otherwise.