Shantha Biotechnics, an arm of Sanofi Pasteur (the vaccines division of Sanofi), has achieved the milestone of having delivered 10 million doses of its cholera vaccine, Shanchol.

The vaccine received World Health Organization (WHO) pre-qualification in 2011 and since then has been shipped to 25 countries. The WHO Pre-qualification of Medicines Programme ensures that medicines meet acceptable standards of quality, safety and efficacy.

“We estimate that the 10 million doses of Shanchol could potentially have saved close to five million people, especially those living in high-risk, endemic areas, from cholera,’’ Shailesh Ayyangar, Managing Director - India and Vice-President - South Asia, Sanofi said in a release issued here on Wednesday.

In 2011, the World Health Assembly recognised the re-emergence of cholera as a significant public health burden and threat. Major cholera outbreaks around the world have been reported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, the Horn of Africa, Mozambique, South Sudan and Yemen.

Cholera, an acute watery diarrhoeal disease, caused by toxigenic strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae O1 and O139, is estimated to cause more than 2.9 million cases and 95,000 deaths annually in cholera endemic countries alone, and frequent epidemics in other settings that have poor water and sanitation infrastructure.

According to a paper published by SAGE Working Group on Oral Cholera Vaccines, the WHO Secretariat, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March 2017, globally the disease estimates range from 1.4 – 4.8 million cases and 28,000 – 142,000 deaths every year.

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