Feds recommend pausing vaccine for mosquito-borne disease chikungunya in people over 60
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Trump to sign order to cut prices of medicines
Donald Trump said he would sign an order to cut prescription prices to the levels paid by other nations.
Federal drug safety officials have recommended pausing the use of a vaccine for a mosquito-borne disease known as chikungunya for people over 60 following reports of serious adverse events.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that 17 serious adverse events, including two that resulted in death, have been reported in worldwide recipients of the vaccine Ixchiq over the age of 60. Six of the events occurred in the United States, the FDA said in a safety communication on Monday, May 12.
Domestic and global cases have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, run by the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to flag potential safety problems with vaccines. The reported cases were in individuals with underlying chronic medical conditions and the adverse events "may not be causally related to vaccination," the FDA said.
The vaccine's maker, Valneva, said in a statement that it is "upholding the highest safety standards" and pointed to the potential for underlying conditions and other medications as contributing factors in the adverse events.
"Thorough evaluation of these cases is critical to ensure the safe use of Ixchiq," the company said.
French drug regulators updated their recommendations for Ixchiq in April and the European Medicines Agency announced that its safety committee had launched a review of the vaccine earlier this month and prohibited its use in people 65 and older, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
What is chikungunya?
Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne illness named for the joint pain it causes, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Most people infected by a mosquito bite recover from the illness in about one week, but some have lasting joint pain – the clinic says. There is no cure for the disease and treatment focuses on managing symptoms inlcuding:
Headache
Muscle pain
Swelling in joints
Rash
Fatigue
Nausea
The FDA approved Ixchiq for the prevention of the disease in adults over 18 in November 2023. It uses a live, though weakened, version of the virus that may cause symptoms similar to the disease, according to the FDA.
The FDA said that some of the reported adverse events were consistent with severe complications of chikungunya disease.
The FDA said it will conduct an updated benefit-risk assessment for the use of Ixchiq in the 60-and-up age bracket and that both the agency and the CDC will continue monitoring safety reports for the vaccine.
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They note too that even if no chemicals came from China, fentanyl makers would look to other countries with large pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries, such as India. Des pite the challenges of enforcement in a vast sector where goods are often shipped in covert ways by busy air and sea routes, observers also say that more can be done in China. That includes tightening regulations to enable tougher punishments for people who sell controlled precursors to criminal groups or their middlemen unknowingly. Experts also say more could also be done to enforce existing regulations, especially in terms of how central government edicts are enforced by local authorities across China. 'Scheduling drugs and precursors that lead to the production of illegal drugs is one step of many needed in China,' said David Luckey, a senior international and defense researcher at RAND, a US-based think tank. 'I would suggest better still would be actually preventing Chinese companies from selling and distributing these harmful chemicals and drugs to criminal organizations in Mexico.' In addition to China, Trump placed tariffs on Mexico and Canada earlier this year, accusing them of not doing enough to curb migration and fentanyl trafficking, but carved out significant exemptions to those tariff rates. The US earlier this year designated Mexican cartels it alleges are involved in fentanyl trafficking as foreign terrorist organizations. 'China is a command economy with extreme control of its population – I think if the Chinese Communist Party didn't want Chinese companies doing this, the CCP could do more to stop it, and be more effective in stopping it,' Luckey said. An annual US State Department report on narcotics controls released in March described China's 'significant steps' working with the US last year to reduce precursor exports, which it said included cracking down on online platforms and companies selling them, making arrests, and adding 55 synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals to control lists. China's Ministry of Public Security last month said it had seized more than 1,400 tons of various precursor chemicals, and 151 related criminal cases were resolved in 2024. But authorities in China also acknowledge the scope of the problem, with a recent report noting that channels and means for smuggling chemicals out of the country 'were increasing' and 'constantly being updated,' creating 'greater challenges.' Beijing – which seeks to present itself as a responsible global player – has its own reasons for not wanting to be seen as an international purveyor of illicit drugs. But Chinese officials have long linked cooperation with the US on the issue to the health of the broader relationship. China cut off drug control cooperation completely in August 2022 in retaliation for then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. It then took a friendly summit between Xi and former US President Joe Biden in late 2023 to get collaboration back on track. This time around, China has bristled at the Trump administration's off-the-bat imposition of tariffs, saying it 'undermines' cooperation. The White House did not respond to a CNN request for comment on China's latest control steps. 'If the US truly wants to cooperate with China, it should face up to the objective facts, correct its wrongdoing, and seek dialogue with China,' a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said last month when asked whether those measures were done in cooperation with the US or at its behest. But Beijing is also keenly aware that the current tariffs are hitting at a time when China's economy has already been struggling with domestic challenges – and there's no certainty those duties couldn't rise again under Trump's capricious trade policy. 'Since the 20% tariff is specifically linked to cooperation on fentanyl, the Chinese might be hoping for a package deal that includes trade, counternarcotics, among other things,' said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington. 'The Chinese hope to remove the 20% tariff … (and are) eager to get President Trump to visit China this year, so they need to work out good progress,' she said.
