Humans to test new TB vaccines

, health editor
Mon 22 Oct 2001 08.19 EDT

The first new vaccine in 80 years for tuberculosis is about to be tested on humans in Oxford, offering potential hope for millions around the world.

The disease kills 2m a year worldwide. In Africa it is the main cause of death of people who are HIV positive, but its incidence is rising in Britain.

The existing vaccine, BCG (bacille Calmette Guerin - named after the French scientists who invented it), was introduced in 1921. Given to children, it protects against certain forms of tuberculosis but it wears off after 10 years, and offers no protection to adults against the lung disease.

According to the public health laboratory service, there were 6,797 TB cases last year. There are also fears that drug resistant strains of TB could arrive in Britain from some parts of the developing world and the former Soviet Union.

The trial will be led by Helen McShane of Oxford University, who has been awarded a fellowship by the Wellcome Trust for the £690,000 six-year study. She hopes the new vaccine will be given in addition to the BCG to offer protection in adulthood.

"It is based on the old smallpox vaccine," she said. "It is a recombinant smallpox vaccine which has a little bit of TB in it." One advantage of this strategy , also being used in HIV and malaria vaccines under development, is that the particular smallpox strain was widely used decades ago before the disease was eliminated and vaccinations ended, meaning doctors are optimistic the strain is safe. In Oxford, routine BCG vaccinations in schools stopped in 1981 so there are people who have never had any protection.

· The fatal impact of meningitis among children is on the wane, partly because of earlier recognition and treatment, according to new research.

Studies at Alder Hey children's hospital, Liverpool, and St Mary's hospital, London, also ascribed the fall to a new vaccine for meningitis C, said an article in Archives of Disease in Childhood.