Vaccination strategies for tuberculosis.

The widespread plague of tuberculosis (TB) has continued despite the availability of licensed TB vaccine (BCG) and directly observed chemotherapy (DOTS) programmes. Also, emergence of multi-drug resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis presents serious challenges for the DOTS strategy. Today, TB still remains a deadly disease and leading infectious killer of youth and adults. Clearly, there is a need for an improved TB vaccine. Various efforts have been made in this direction, and a heterologous prime-boost regimen probably represents the best hope for an improved vaccine regimen to prevent TB. The first generation of new vaccines might also complement drug-treatment regimens and be effective against reactivation of TB from the latent state, which would significantly enhance their usefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]