Work on new TB vaccines 'on track'

Scientists hope to have an effective vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) by the end of this decade, according to local expert Hassan Mahomed. Current vaccines offer only limited protection against the airborne disease, which is showing increasing resistance to the limited drugs available to treat it.

An effective vaccine is considered the best way of slowing the spread of TB, which infects about nine million people worldwide each year, and is responsible for about 1,4 million deaths. Dr Mahomed, head of the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative's clinical trials programme, said SA was at the forefront of research to develop new TB vaccines. He said this was unfortunately for the wrong reason - SA had a high rate of TB, adding that it was also for a good reason, because the country had the advantage of reasonably good infrastructure and research expertise. About 500 000 cases of TB are diagnosed in SA each year.

Dr Mahomed was speaking ahead of the release of a new global plan for developing a vaccine, launched in Johannesburg. The TB Vaccine Blueprint sets out the research goals for the international community for the next decade. Its publication comes a week after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would give $220m to the field over the next five years. The money will be channelled via the non-profit group Aeras, which supports several TB vaccine trials in SA.

The funding is about half the money Aeras estimates it needs to reach its five-year targets. Aeras CEO Jim Connolly said TB vaccine research had been neglected until about 10 years ago, but there had recently been progress and 12 candidate vaccines were now being tested in the field. Five of those products were being evaluated in SA.

Tamar Kahn: Business Day, 22 March 2012