As Frédéric Tangy and colleagues explain in their recent study in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, "The development of an affordable pediatric vaccine that could provide long-term protection against all four dengue serotypes remains a global public health priority."

With this priority in mind, they tested a new candidate vaccine in mice, a candidate created using the measles vaccine. In their study, a measles vaccine vector expressing a secreted dengue virus antigen from serotype 1 induced in mice durable serotype-specific virus-neutralizing antibodies.

As reported in a news feature in SciDev.Net, a hugely valuable resource on science and technology for global development, the "encouraging results mean the researchers will now test a similar candidate vaccine, this time 'tetravalent' — targeting all of the four types of the virus."

Frédéric Tangy, quoted in the news feature, said: "We are now performing repetition of the experiments and evaluation of the effects of the vaccine in vitro on human dendritic cells."

"The next step will be to confirm these results in macaque [monkeys], the standard model for dengue evaluation before human clinical trials."