Zambia: New vaccine inevitable to eliminate TB
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major public health problem that continues to claim millions of lives each year.
According to a media statement by the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) and ZAMBART, increasing cases of drug-resistant TB and the combination of TB and HIV co-infection, has make the disease even more deadly and more difficult to treat.
ZAMBART and CIDRZ principal investigators Helen Ayles and German Henostroza said Zambia has an HIV prevalence which currently stands at 14 per cent, and that about 70 per cent of TB patients are HIV-infected.
To this effect, global health experts now agree that new and more effective vaccines will be essential to eliminating TB.
Zambia is among the many countries involved in the TB vaccine research, mainly because the country is one of those in sub-Saharan Africa with the highest rates of TB.
Zambia is ranked 13th-most affected country in the world, therefore, the TB vaccine research in the country began in May 2015 and will be carried out for a period of three years.
The research will take place on two sites in Lusaka, namely, the CIDRZ Kalingalinga and the ZAMBART Kanyama sites, and will involve 810 participants.
Currently, there is no known TB vaccine for adults, and the only available TB vaccine is the BCG which is given to infants,
However, the BCG vaccine has not been very effective in preventing the spread of TB among adults and adolescents.
This is despite the fact that, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately nine million people across the globe are infected with TB each year.
The 2014 WHO statistics indicate that nearly 4,000 people die from TB each day and that one person is infected each second, and one dies of TB each 20 seconds.
Speaking recently at a media sensitisation workshop on TB, National TB and Leprosy Programme manager Nathan Kapata said the TB prevalence in Zambia had declined from 665 per 100,000 in 1990 to 388 per 100,000 in 2012.
"The TB mortality rate in Zambia has declined from 63 per 100,000 in 1990 to 28 per 100,000 in 2012," he said.
Mr Kapata, however, said that Zambia remained one of the countries with the highest burden of TB, and that the most affected age group was between 24 and 44 years of age, who accounted for about 50 per cent of people infected with TB.
Source: Times of Zambia
