February 10, 2010

New Vaccine Might Prevent Tuberculosis in HIV-Positive People

A new vaccine called mycobacterium vaccae (MV) might prevent tuberculosis (TB) in HIV-positive people, according to a new study published in the journal AIDS and reported on by HealthDay News. TB is the most common cause of death among HIV-positive people in developing countries.

For the study, researchers from Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire, conducted Phase III trials on 2,000 HIV-positive Tanzanians. MV reduced the definite TB rate by 39 percent.

“Since development of a new vaccine against tuberculosis is a major international health priority, especially for patients with HIV infection, we and our Tanzanian collaborators are very encouraged by the results,” said principal investigator Ford von Reyn, MD, director of the DarDar International Programs for the infectious disease and international health section at Dartmouth Medical School.

Researchers add that those newly diagnosed with HIV are at risk of immediately contracting TB so they should receive the MV vaccine before beginning antiretroviral therapy.

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George Maris, Charlottesville VA, 2010-02-11 14:44:58
It is estimated that 1.8 million people died of tuberculosis in 2008. There were an estimated 9.4 million new cases of tuberculosis in 2008 of which the majority were in Asia and Africa. It is thought that the rates of new tuberculosis infections and deaths per capita have probably been falling globally for several years now. However, the total number of new tuberculosis cases is still slowly rising due to population growth.The global epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) (Avert)