The current tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), is a live vaccine used worldwide, as it protects against severe forms of the disease, saving thousands of lives every year, but its efficacy against pulmonary forms of TB, responsible for transmission of the diseases, is variable. For more than 80 years now no new TB vaccines have been successfully developed. Over the last de...

In the last 10 yrs, work with experimental laboratory models has developed many new vaccine candidates against tuberculosis (TB). They include subunit vaccines, modified bacilli Calmette-Guérin (BCG) and attenuated Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Phase I clinical trials of new TB vaccine candidates have begun for the first time after 80 yrs of use of BCG. Many of these new trials involve recombinan...

Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) as a live vector of recombinant bacterial vaccine is a promising system to be used. In this study, we evaluate the disrupted expression of heterologous HIV-1gp120 gene in BCG Pasteur host strain using replicative vectors pMV261 and pJH222. pJH222 carries a lysine complementing gene in BCG lysine auxotrophs. The HIV-1 gp120 gene expression was r...

BACKGROUND Globally, BCG vaccination varies in efficacy and has some non-specific protective effects. Previous studies comparing BCG strains have been small-scale, with few or no immunological outcomes and have compared TB-specific responses only. We aimed to evaluate both specific and non-specific immune responses to different strains of BCG within a large infant cohort and to evaluate further...

Tuberculosis remains a major public health problem around the world. Because the Mycobacterium bovis Bacilli-Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine fails to protect adults from pulmonary tuberculosis, there is an urgent need for improved vaccine formulations. Unlike BCG, recombinant vaccines purified from bacterial expression vectors, as well as naked DNA, require an additional adjuvant. Recent improvem...

Previous work with small-animal laboratory models of tuberculosis has shown that vaccination strategies based on heterologous prime-boost protocols using Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) to prime and modified vaccinia virus Ankara strain (MVA85A) or recombinant attenuated adenoviruses (Ad85A) expressing the mycobacterial antigen Ag85A to boost may increase the protective effic...

UNLABELLED The outcome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and the immunological response to the bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine are highly variable in humans. Deciphering the relative importance of host genetics, environment, and vaccine preparation for the efficacy of BCG has proven difficult in natural populations. We developed a model system that captures the breadth of immunolog...

Tuberculosis, a major public health problem is an important cause of childhood morbidity and mortality in developing countries. BCG vaccination is recommended by World Health Organization for control of disease in countries with a high incidence of tuberculosis(l). This policy is routinely applied in preterm infants who may be at a greater risk of infection than term infants. That is why like t...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death in South Africa. A number of potential new TB vaccine candidates have been identified and are currently in clinical trials. One such candidate is MVA85A. This study aimed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of adding the MVA85A vaccine as a booster to the BCG vaccine in children from the perspective of the South African government. MET...

Introduction: In tuberculosis (TB) endemic regions BCG vaccine is administered at birth in an effort to protect against neonatal tuberculous meningitis. However, this live vaccine facilitates overwhelming systemic infections by otherwise innocuous organisms in infants with cellular primary immunodeficiencies . Case Report: Our case is a seven month old infant who developed abscess at BCG vaccin...