Recent progress in development of vaccines against tuberculosis reviewed.

2003 SEP 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A scientist in the United States has published a review of recent progress in the development and testing of vaccines against human tuberculosis.

According to recent research published in the International Journal for Parasitology, "The growing pandemic of human tuberculosis has not been affected significantly by the widespread use of the only currently available vaccine, bacille Calmette Guerin. Bacille Calmette Guerin protects uniformly against serious pediatric forms of tuberculosis and against adult pulmonary tuberculosis in some parts of the world, but there are clearly populations in high-burden countries which do not benefit from the current vaccination regimen."

"New tuberculosis vaccines will be essential for the ultimate control of this ancient disease," said David N. McMurray at Texas A&M University in the United States. "Research over the past 10 years has produced literally hundreds of new tuberculosis vaccine candidates representing all of the major vaccine design strategies; protein/peptide vaccines in adjuvants, DNA vaccines, naturally and rationally attenuated strains of mycobacteria, recombinant mycobacteria and other living vaccine vectors expressing genes coding for immunodominant mycobacterial antigens, and non-peptide vaccines. Many of these vaccines have been tested for immunogenicity and protective efficacy in mouse and guinea pig models of low-dose pulmonary tuberculosis."

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