Executive summary
Tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide. With the targets of the WHO End TB Strategy set, the need for effective prevention and treatment is even more urgent. Despite the many challenges faced in tuberculosis research, including low capacity for human efficacy testing of vaccines, multidrug-resistance, and poor links between diagnosis and treatment of children with tuberculosis, there has been substantial progress.
In this Series, we present how diagnosis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis can be improved, how drug regimens could be used to best treat different patient populations, and future perspectives for management of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. We highlight the gap in knowledge surrounding children with tuberculosis and how testing can be improved. We also present the latest insights into the field of tuberculosis vaccine development, looking at clinical and preclinical trials, the challenges that remain to be overcome, and how controlled human infection models and tools, such as in-vitro functional killing assays, can facilitate vaccine selection.