Health authorities in Mexico approved the first ever dengue vaccine in order to prevent the spread of the deadliest mosquito-borne disease.

BBC reported the news Wednesday, noting that the move from health authorities in the Latin American country gave birth to the world's first approved vaccine against the disease.

According to the report, Sanofi Pasteur, a French pharmaceutical company manufactured the vaccine that is now being called Dengvaxia.

"With this decision, Mexico moves ahead of all other countries, including France, to tackle the spread of this virus," the Mexican health ministry explained in a statement.

The outlet also found that Dengvaxia has been developing for over 20 years, and will be given to around 40,000 Mexicans in the first wave of the country's quest to eradicate the disease that kills an average of 22,000 people every year, per records from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Speaking of the WHO, the Associated Press (via Yahoo News) cited a report from the organization that revealed just how effective the drug is in preventing the onset of dengue.

However, AP noted that Mexican health authorities did not specify if this vaccine, which was found to have an average effectiveness rate of 60.8 percent in four strains of the disease, was indeed Sanofi's, Dengvaxia.

"It said the vaccine's manufacturer had proved its safety and effectiveness, but did not name the drug. In a separate statement, the Lyon, France-based Sanofi Pasteur identified the vaccine as Dengvaxia," the report read.

Meanwhile, a report from the New York Times cited a statement from Sanofi's Executive Vice President for vaccines, Olivier Charmeil, that the company is working to make dengue a "vaccine-preventable disease."

Dengue, also known as 'breakbone fever,' is a disease caused by class of viruses carried by mosquitoes called the Aedes aegypti.

Medicine Net says its symptoms include fever, rash, and headache or the "dengue triad," as well as swollen lymph nodes, severe joint and muscle pain, and exhaustion.

The dengue fever has a tendency to be more severe in people who have compromised or weak immune systems, but an attack of a certain strain of the dengue virus produces immunity for a lifetime to that particular viral serotype to which the patient was exposed.

It is common in the tropics and subtropics like Africa, Asia, and the Latin America. According to BBC, dengue first struck Thailand and the Philippines in the 1950s.

Like other viral diseases, dengue also sparks outbreaks in other areas, like the current one in Hawaii.