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Game-changing TB vaccine on the way

Hyderabad - Campaigners said the trial in Kenya, South Africa and Zambia, involving more than 3,000 adults, was a crucial step amid a push for more funding for TB research.

Scientists said on Tuesday, October 29, they are closing in on a new game-changing vaccine for tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease that claimed some 1.5 million lives last year.
In a trial in three African nations, GlaxoSmithKline said its vaccine had 50 per cent effectiveness three years after it was given to participants who already have TB bacteria but have not fallen ill from the disease. "These results demonstrate for the first time in almost a century, the global community potentially has a new tool to provide protection against TB," GSK Vaccines' chief medical officer Thomas Breuer said.
Campaigners said the trial in Kenya, South Africa and Zambia, involving more than 3,000 adults, was a crucial step amid a push for more funding for TB research. South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative director Mark Hatherill said a vaccine would be "the only way in the short-term to interrupt TB transmission and get control of the epidemic".