TUBERCULOSIS (TB) remains one of the major killer diseases in the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and in some South American and Asian countries, according to recent findings of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Sibusiso Hlatjwako, director for African Affairs for AERAS, an
American non-profit-making organisation that is involved in studying TB vaccines before the vaccines are used on human beings, said on Wednesday in Lusaka that while other disease outbreaks such as Ebola had received wide media coverage resulting in more research for a vaccine, TB remained one of the major killer diseases and yet received little media attention.
She made this grim revelation during a one-day media training and briefing on the need for TB vaccines held in Lusaka at the Crest Golf View Hotel.
The media training was organised by AERAS in conjunction with Zambart and the Centre for Infectious Disease Control in Zambia (CIDRZ) who are also taking part in a TB vaccine study currently taking place in Zambia.
Mr Hlatjwako urged journalists to take a keen interest in TB and inform their audiences on mortality rates, vaccines being developed and other interventions taking place in the fight against TB.
He said on August 28, 2014 AERAS announced the initiation of a large multi-country Phase IIb clinical trial to evaluate the ability of a novel vaccine candidate to prevent TB disease in adults.
AERAS and GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines, SA (GSK) will jointly conduct the double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of GSK’s proprietary vaccine candidate M72/AS01.
The clinical trial will enroll more than 3, 500 healthy men and women, with latent TB infection, aged 18 to 50, in TB endemic sub-Saharan African countries, starting in South Africa.
Research volunteers will be enrolled in 2014 and 2015, with a 36-month follow up and yielding study results in 2018.
Monde Muyoyeta from CIDRZ, Helen AYles from Zambart and Nathan Kapata the Director – National TB Programme, all described TB as one of the most deadly infectious diseases in the world and that a TB patient with active disease can infect up to 15 people simply by coughing, sneezing or talking.
“Approximately nine million people become sick with TB every year while globally about 1.5 million people died from TB in 2013.
This means that one person is infected with TB every second, one person dies of TB every 20 seconds and nearly 4, 000 people die from TB every day,” Dr Muyoyeta said quoting WHO statistics.
She said since BCG, the current TB vaccine has not been as effective as expected though it works to prevent severe forms of TB in children, it is imperative that a new vaccine against TB is developed, hence the current study being conducted in Zambia.
Revaccination of BCG of adolescents and adults does not appear to be an effective approach to TB control.
The most effective way to stop an epidemic like TB is to prevent its spread. As with every other major infectious disease in the history mankind, prevention through vaccination would be the most cost-effective tool in eradicating disease burden.
An effective TB vaccine for adolescents and adults is crucial to get ahead of transmission and drive game-changing reductions in disease burden.
The research trial, TB – 18 has started in Zambia, Kenya and South Africa and the two research sites in Zambia are Kanyama Township where the trial is being conducted by Zambart and Kalingalinga where it is being conducted by CIDRZ.
It is important to note that drug resistant TB is hard to treat and that in 2013, about 650, 000 TB drug resistant cases were reported.
Only one out of five individuals with drug-resistant TB are accurately diagnosed. Multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB and Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR) TB require a minimum of two years using highly toxic drug regimens while some TB strains are becoming virtually untreatable.  MDR and XDR can also be passed to other people.
According to Dr Muyoyeta, more financial resources are required to assist in coming up with an appropriate TB vaccine.
And Dr Kapata said the Zambian government is fully committed to finding a TB vaccine hence its support towards the current clinical trial of M72/AS01 while Dr Ayles said while participants in the study have not yet reached the desired numbers, Zambart would continue with the enrolling exercise adding that a TB vaccine is a must to prevent  deaths.
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