4 minute read
A new TB vaccine?
A new TB vaccine?
New research brings hope
According to TBFacts.org, 80% of the South African population is infected with TB bacteria. The good news is the majority have latent, rather than active TB. This means the number of bacteria is small enough for your immune system to handle and for no symptoms to surface.
The bad news is that South Africa has a high prevalence of active tuberculosis cases, but recent developments from the University of Cape Town suggest we’re getting closer to more solutions.
Hope at the End of the Tunnel
Part of the University of Cape Town’s Health Sciences Faculty, the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) has the singular focus of developing a vaccine for tuberculosis. “A new, effective vaccine has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide,” according to SATVI.
“We are testing multiple new vaccine candidates in clinical trials. We are also completing projects to address critical clinical, epidemiological, immunological and human genetic questions in TB vaccine development.”
Dr Munyaradzi Musvosvi, TB research officer at SATVI, recently told an NPR reporter about a breakthrough they had made in finding that could aid the development of an mRNA vaccine for TB. The current vaccine only works for children, and the latest progress could lead to people of all ages receiving the necessary protection.
Using blood samples from high school students that had been frozen for years, Dr Musvosvi and other researchers went about trying to find out what the difference was between those who had shown signs of exposure to TB, without getting sick, and those who did fall ill.
“Did the exposed students who never got sick have a different set of immune cells [sic]. And, if so, were those immune cells – they’re called T-cells – latching on to different, presumably more vulnerable, parts of the TB bacteria?” writes NPR’s Nurith Aizenman, who Dr Musvosvi took through the facility where the samples were kept.
Stanford researcher, Huang Huang came up with an innovation which allowed SATVI researchers to find out more about the behaviour of T-cells when they were responding to proteins. A partnership was born.
“This year the team was able to publish their findings in the journal Nature Medicine. Just as they’d hoped, they discovered several T-cells that were far more common to people who are able to control TB. And they’ve been able to determine several TB proteins that these T-cells focus on,” continues Azienman.
“... and what we’re trying to do here is to identify priority targets that vaccine developers could then use to develop a TB vaccine that is more efficacious,” says Dr Musvosvi.
Although it will take years for a prototype vaccine to be developed using the research from SATVI, the for-profit and nonprofit efforts could prove a telling breakthrough. According to the World Health Organisation’s annual Global Tuberculosis Report from last year, South Africa recorded 304 000 TB cases in 2021, 56 000 of which resulted in death.
TB around the world
10.6 Million fell ill in 2021
1.6 Million deaths in 2021
Of great concern is that more than half of the people who fell ill were also HIV-positive, resulting in 33 000 deaths, almost 60% of the total number of TB-related deaths in the country.
“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that with solidarity, determination, innovation and the equitable use of tools, we can overcome severe health threats. Let’s apply those lessons to tuberculosis. It is time to put a stop to this long-time killer. Working together, we can end TB,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the DirectorGeneral of the WHO, after the release of the report.
National Strategic Plan for Hiv, Tb & Stis 2023 - 2028
Cabinet recently published the NSP for HIV, TB & STIs for the next five years. “... this NSP outlines comprehensive strategic objectives and priority interventions to be carried out to get the HIV, TB and STIs response on-track to eliminating these diseases as public health threats by 2030,” reads the outline to the document.
The NSP sets out four goals:
1. Break down to achieving HIV, TB and STIs solutions
2. Maximise equitable and equal access to HIV, TB and STIs services and solutions
3. Fully resource and sustain efficient NSP led by revitalised, inclusive and accountable institutions
4. Build resilient systems for HIV, TB and STIs that are integrated into systems for health, social protection and pandemic response.
