NEW THIS FRIDAY: FIRST HEPATITIS E VACCINE IN WORLD APPROVED IN CHINA

Wednesday, 14th of August 2013

WORLDS FIRST HEPATITIS E VACCINE APPROVED IN CHINA

http://www.who.int/immunization/GIN_January_2012.pdf

31/01/2012 from Sonia Pagliusi, DCVMN Secretariat.

Chinas State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) recently approved the worlds first hepatitis E vaccine (Chinese,English), Hecolin™, which was jointly developed by the China National Institute of Diagnostics and Vaccine Development

in Infectious Diseases and Xiamen Innovax Biotech Co., Ltd. A total of 112,604

healthy adults aged 16–65 years participated in the phase III trial in China,

which demonstrated that Hecolin™ was well tolerated and 100% effective in

preventing hepatitis E disease. Experts hope that Hecolin™ can play a vital role

in controlling the spread of hepatitis E around the world. Initial introduction

will focus on high-risk populations, such as child-bearing-age women, chronic

liver disease patients and food industry workers, with advice from international

organizations to introduce the vaccine where needed.

Hepatitis E is a waterborne disease, transmitted from person-to-person via the faecal-oral route. No approved treatment exists and epidemics have been reported in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Central America.

According to the WHO, one third of the global population may have been infected by the virus and there are an estimated 14 million symptomatic cases of hepatitis E worldwide annually, with 300,000 deaths and 5,200 stillbirths (The Lancet, Volume 376, Issue 9744, Pages 895-902, 11 September 2010).