News

The Newspaper

Archives

Press Releases

Subscribe

Advertise

Mailing list

Links

About us

What's on and where

Messages for
The Muslim News

Contact The Muslim News

The Muslim News on your PDA

Back to index

Issue 220, Friday 31 August 2007 - 17 Sha'ban 1428

Science Health

By Rachel Kayani

New TB vaccine begins trials in South Africa
A new vaccine for tuberculosis, the first for 80 years, has started clinical trials in South Africa. TB vaccines have been in use for many years and have successfully helped to prevent what was once a wide-spread, debilitating and often fatal disease.
However, with a rise in global cases of TB, more than two million people worldwide die from TB each year and emerging drug-resistance strains. The fight against this disease is far from over. In the UK alone, there has been a 10% rise in cases.
The current TB vaccine or BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guerin) as it is known, has been in use for many years. The new vaccine, known as MVA85A, will be given alongside the BCG vaccine and works by boosting the immune response to BCG. Results so far have shown that the immune response is up to 20 times higher than the standard BCG vaccine alone. The trials in the Western Cape area of South Africa, where one in 100 infants have the illness, will reveal if the extra jab works better than BCG alone in preventing the disease.
With the rise of TB cases and antibiotic-resistant strains, new tools are needed to continue the fight against this disease.
The bacterium seems to be managing to stay one step ahead of human effort, as demonstrated by the appearance, especially amongst HIV positive populations in S Africa, of a particular strain that shows resistance to virtually all known drugs.
Thus a more effective vaccine that will provide better protection from the disease would be a great step forward in the continuing battle.