The Singapore Armed Forces can play an active role in Dengue vaccine test rather than recruiting 1,200 people off the streets. SAF should immune our soldiers as they have a higher risk of getting dengue through jungle exercises.
Singapore has started a clinical trial of a proposed vaccine for the dengue virus.
Since April this year, a team has been trying to recruit 1,200 people, aged two to 45, in four public hospitals for the trial, run by French vaccines giant Sanofi Pasteur, an arm of Sanofi-Aventis Group.
Associate Professor Leo Yee Sin, clinical director of the Communicable Disease Centre at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, said the vaccine is expected to work against the four different strands of the virus, all currently present in Singapore.
Trial participants will be given either the dengue vaccine or a "control" vaccine - either a vaccine for hepatitis A or influenza.
A comparison between the results of the two will show how safe the dengue vaccine is.
Three injections over the span of a year will be administered and participants will have their health monitored for four years.
While ongoing Sanofi trials in Thailand aim to test how effectively the vaccine prevents infection, its Singapore trials will focus on the safety of the vaccine and the body's immune responses to it.
To date, around 1,200 people in other parts of the world have received at least one dose without major side-effects, said Sanofi's director of clinical development, Dr Melanie Saville.
Mild side-effects, common to most vaccines, include soreness and mild fever, she said.
Despite decades of research, a successful vaccine has not been developed, partly because an effective one would need to protect against all four strains of the virus.
If trials are successful, Dr Saville estimates that the licensed vaccine could be available within the next seven years.
When asked by my paper whether the vaccine, if approved, could eliminate dengue in the region, Prof Leo said: "If it's proven to be safe, effective and able to be co-administered with other vaccines, then yes."
But she stressed that dengue prevention has to remain multi-pronged: "It doesn't mean that with a vaccine, we should be more relaxed on the vector of transmission."
there are ethnical concern using military soldier as a Test subject. There are side effect on individual for untested vaccine.
Can the SAF soldier say "NO" to his commanding officer?