Most advanced Tuberculosis vaccine in 90 Years fails to boost protection

Results from a highly anticipated clinical trial of the most advanced tuberculosis vaccine in 90 years showed that it failed to protect babies against the infectious disease, researchers said on Monday. The experimental vaccine, known as MVA85A, seemed to have “no significant efficacy” against either TB or infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, according to the study published Monday in The Lancet. The TB research community had hoped that the MVA85A vaccine could be used as a booster to the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, the only existing tuberculosis vaccine, which was created 90 years ago and is routinely used against the airborne disease that kills around 1.4 million people around the world each year. Researchers wrote that while the new vaccine appeared to be safe, the study found no evidence that it prevented tuberculosis. The major clinical trial involved 2,797 healthy babies in South Africa between the ages of four and six months of...