An Academia Sinica research team said on Thursday it had developed a protein drug that is effective in identifying and treating dengue fever, just one day after the Centers for Disease Control announced the number of cases could exceed 1,000 this year. Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease that causes severe flu-like symtoms and has the potential to be fatal. According to research team leader Wu Han-Chung, the newly developed therapeutic antibody, humanized via genetic engineering, is effective in checking dengue virus type 2 and protecting animals from being infected by the virus. The antibody can also be made into diagnostic reagent kits to allow health institutions to identify what type of dengue virus has affected a patient, Wu, professor and vice director at the Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology under Taiwan's top research institution, told the Central News Agency on Thursday. Dengue fever, with its potential to trigger dengue shock syndrome and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), is a critical public health issue in tropical and sub- tropical climates worldwide, he said. It is estimated that 50 million-100 million dengue infections occur each year, with 500,000 cases of DHF and about 20,000 deaths, according to Wu. He said the newly developed antibody was capable of both neutralizing dengue viral infection and protecting mice against becoming infected. The antibody showed a success rate of 90 percent in recently completed animal study, but it will take a year before it can enter phase one clinical testing, Wu said. 