A division of Sanofi-Aventis group is teaming up with an international vaccine group to hasten the outcome of the recently launched experimentation for a dengue fever vaccine. Now, the clinical investigation is on its last stage of development.

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine business run by Sanofi-Aventis, is the largest vaccine company in the world. It is collaborating with the International Vaccine Institute, a Seoul-based organization established by the initiation of the United Nations Development Program.

Sanofi and the international vaccine group said on Monday that they want to increase the global awareness of dengue vaccinations. They want to put the dengue vaccination on a higher level of the world’s health agenda.

Dengue fever is a disease transmitted by a particular kind of mosquito. It is a threat to about half of the total world’s population. There are about 220 million individuals afflicted with the disease each year.

Two million of them progress to a severe degree of the disease called dengue hemorrhagic fever. Mostly, children coming from Asia and Latin experience this life-threatening complication.

Currently, dengue fever has no cure. No vaccines have yet been successfully formulated to help battle the disease. However, Sanofi has the most clinically advanced candidate for dengue fever vaccine around the world. It just entered the third phase of its clinical testing performed in Australia last November.

The drug maker from France had previously said that a dengue fever vaccine could possibly produce sales of more than $1 billion in a given year.

The launch of the Dengue Vaccine Initiative was announced last February 10 by the International Vaccine Institute, in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, Sabin Vaccine Institute and World Health Organization.