Vaccine hope amid TB crisis

Thursday October 14th, 2010

Scientists are hoping to develop a "super vaccine" against tuberculosis, it was announced last night.

Researchers in the USA, and Siena, Italy, say they are developing a vaccine against the "growing army" of drug-resistant bacteria.

Four proteins have been fused into a single molecule and have shown they can protect against the bugs in animal studies, according to the report in Science Translational Medicine.

Led by Sylvie Bertholet, of the Infectious Disease Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USA, they now hope to begin trials in humans.

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation set out its latest plans to tackle the growing global menace of TB.

It warned of some ten million deaths in the next five years if treatment and prevention was not improved.

The 37 billion dollar plan calls for the development of rapid tests that can be used in "the most basic health outposts". It says four new vaccines and three new drugs are in the pipeline.

It says one million people are likely to be diagnosed with drug-resistant TB and must be treated according to international standards.

South African health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi backed the plan.

He said: "In South Africa we have embarked on an ambitious agenda for reducing the toll of TB on our people, and we are committed to meeting the Global Plan's targets.

"We call on world leaders to invest in the plan, which can help move us towards ridding the world of TB."

WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan said: "There is an urgent need to scale up action against TB - ten million people, including 4 million women and children, will lose their lives unnecessarily between now and 2015 if we fail."

Science Translational Medicine October 13 2010

Tags: Africa | Europe | North America | Respiratory | World Health

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