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
