PORTALJABAR, BANDUNG CITY - Dengue fever cases in Indonesia have a significant death rate. In Indonesia, there is currently an increase in dengue cases until April 2024 (18th week of 2024), there are 91,269 dengue cases with a death rate of 641 deaths caused by dengue disease.

Based on data from the Indonesian Ministry of Health, there has been an increase in the number of dengue fever cases from 73,518 people in 2021 to 131,265 cases in 2022 with the death rate also increasing from 705 people in 2021 to 1,183 people in 2022.

VP. National Commercial Bio Farma Fitri Puspadewi said that Bio Farma has currently developed a vaccine product as a response to the spread of dengue disease in Indonesia.

"To deal with this phenomenon, Bio Farma is currently continuing to contribute to improving the quality of life of Indonesian people by developing vaccine products. "One of them is by marketing the Qdenga dengue vaccine, a collaboration between Bio Farma and PT Takeda Indonesia," said Fitri, in a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) Socialization of Dengue Fever Vaccine Products.

According to Fitri, currently Bio Farma has collaborated with Takeda to develop and market a vaccine product to prevent Dengue virus (DENV) infection in Indonesia which is marketed under the Qdenga trademark.

"Qdenga is a vaccine indicated for the prevention of dengue disease caused by all dengue virus serotypes (DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4) in individuals aged 6-46 years," said Fitri.

"The use of Qdenga does not require serostatus screening before administering the vaccine so it can be used on individuals who have not or have been infected with DENV. "Apart from that, Qdenga only needs to be given 2 doses in 3 months for long-term protection," he added.

Sanglah Bali Hospital Internal Medicine Specialist I Ketut Agus Somia stated that sufferers infected with primary dengue often show no symptoms or only show mild symptoms, therefore early prevention is needed to break the chain of transmission.

"Vaccination is an effort to prevent dengue virus infection by increasing the body's immunity as a form of self-protection against dengue fever," said Ketut Agus.

Dengue fever (DHF) is a disease with a fairly high death rate in Indonesia. The Indonesian government, through the Ministry of Health, has prepared a National Dengue Management Strategy which will be implemented in 2021. This program will last until 2025 with 6 major strategies for controlling the spread of dengue. (Parno)