Research into an immunomodulatory approach to the treatment of tuberculosis has yielded notable results, reports SUSAN PEARSON.
Tuberculosis kills around two million people each year and infects a further nine million, making the disease one of the biggest threats to human health alongside human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and malaria. The incidence of TB has increased so significantly in recent years that up to a third of the world’s population is now infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and in 1993 WHO declared the disease a global emergency.
While one of the key obstacles to reducing TB prevalence is drug resistance to existing medications, promising new data from research at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London is now pointing the way to a totally new approach to TB treatment that could by-pass the problems of drug resistance altogether.
WORLDWIDE PREVALENCE
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