About this Research Topic
Despite worldwide vaccination coverage, the impact of BCG on the steep decrease of tuberculosis incidence rates in the developed world seems therefore questionable and can rather be attributed to improved social, housing and nutritional conditions, better health care, surveillance and treatment systems. Consequently, the last 15 years saw tremendous efforts to improve vaccination strategies against tuberculosis. Different paths of vaccine approaches were followed including genetically improved BCG strains, attenuated M. tuberculosis variants, recombinant viral vectors and subunit vaccine candidates combined with novel more potent adjuvants. With the first novel vaccine candidates being evaluated in clinical phases II and III and initial results chastening the expectations, a critical reassessment of all candidates is inevitable.
Here, we assembled experts to review and assess the current status of novel anti-tuberculosis vaccine candidates, their efficacy and prospects for implementation as well as the pitfalls and possible measures for improvement. We would like to emphasize though, that we will only include reviews in this Research Topic.
Keywords: Tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, BCG, anti-tuberculosis vaccine
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