United States: Health officials in the US are encouraging patients using the drug Ixchiq to delay the use of the drug pending when other authorities get new information about vaccine results in the global war against chikungunya.
CDC and FDA Urge Caution
The pause for US patients was started on Friday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), while the two federal agencies investigate “postmarketing reports of serious adverse events, including neurologic and cardiac events, in individuals who have received the vaccine” Ixchiq, otherwise known as live “Chikungunya Vaccine,” as per a a safety communication by the US FDA.
In November 2023, the FDA approved Ixchiq to prevent disease due to the chikungunya virus in patients 18 years and above, upi.com reported.
Health officials said on Friday that after 80,000 doses of Ixchiq were distributed worldwide, the FDA is to conduct an updated benefit-risk assessment for the use of Ixchiq in people aged 60 years and older.
Chikungunya Virus is spreading fast
The EU-backed European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control says that in 14 countries or territories, about 80,000 cases and 46 CHIKV-related deaths have been reported since the start of this year.
FDA officials reported 10 days ago that globally, there were 17 “serious adverse events” reported in people over the age of 62, coming out of people who got Ixchiq, with two deaths.
Six out of the 17 reports were made in the United States, but American health officials did not say whether any of the reported cases were in the country or not.
THE US CDC states that the virus is transmitted by mosquitoes, and its symptoms can persist from a week to several months.
Chikungunya virus is also similar to dengue fever; it results in high fever, rashes, headache, and joint pain, upi.com reported.
And although the majority of patients get better in days, the joint pain can last for months, which can be alleviated with pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory drugs.
But although it may render a victim temporarily disabled, it cannot too often lead to death.
Single-Dose Vaccine Approval Under Scrutiny
The single-dose shot given the approval by the federal government in November 2023 was to serve in adults with an increased likelihood of exposure to the chikungunya virus.
It has been demonstrated by research that mosquitoes, simultaneously, are carriers of the Zika and chikungunya viruses; they also may lead to fatal brain infection, which affected 24 victims by November 2015.
The disease was viewed and defined in patients of the US who had arrived from the Caribbean region to Georgia and North Carolina, presumably in May of 2014, as chikungunya struck Cuba.
Chikungunya, a disease that is caused by a virus which is transmitted through the bites of mosquitoes but not by direct contact from person to person, is now in the Americas, near the end of 2013, having travelled at breakneck speeds to other Caribbean countries, Africa, and Asia.