Researchers await clinical trial results of potential TB vaccine, expected early next week

"After nearly 100 years, researchers could be on the verge of finding a vaccine that would eradicate tuberculosis [TB] infections," Reuters reports, noting, "Global health experts are eagerly awaiting clinical trial results, expected early next week, of the first new vaccine in 90 years designed to prevent tuberculosis infections." The news service writes, "While it might not prove effective, it will bring scientists much closer to creating a new generation of TB vaccines," adding, "A lot is riding on the trial's results, which will give the first solid clues about whether scientists are on the right track to create a new generation of TB vaccines."

"Known as MVA85A, the vaccine is the farthest along of more than a dozen candidates being developed globally to stop the transmission of mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is quickly outsmarting the best antibiotic weapons used against it," according to Reuters. "MVA85A is being developed by researchers at Britain's Oxford University with support from Aeras, the Wellcome Trust, the European Commission and the Oxford-Emergent Tuberculosis Consortium, a joint venture between Oxford and Emergent Biosolutions Inc. created to make the vaccine," the news service notes, adding, "It is one of 16 vaccines being studied in human clinical trials and the study results will inform the design of more than 50 vaccines being tested in preclinical trials in animals" (Steenhuysen, 2/1).