Efforts to fight the world’s biggest infectious killer are about to get a boost, with new vaccines on the horizon.

MISSOULA, 23 October 2023 – The National Institutes of Health recently awarded a $12.3 million contract to the University of Montana to develop a novel vaccine adjuvant for use in a tuberculosis vaccine. Adjuvants are substances that boost the effectiveness of vaccines.

In preparation for the Union World Conference on Lung Health in Paris, France on 15-18 November 2023, the TB Vaccine Advocacy Roadmap (TB Vax ARM) will host a virtual meeting on 2 November 2023 exploring what’s next for TB research and development (R&D) following the United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB (HLM).

The World Health Organization (WHO) will host a webinar on 3 November 2023 to launch an operational handbook and an e-course on TB and mental health conditions.

The Global Tuberculosis Programme in collaboration with the WHO Academy is pleased to announce the launch of the e-course, Harnessing the power of routine health facility data: Tuberculosis.

The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) launched a new free online course on child TB diagnosis: Interpretation of chest X-rays (CXRs) in children with presumptive TB in high burden settings.

A researcher team from Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne led by Dr. Vivek Thacker now group leader at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Heidelberg University Hospital have studied why tuberculosis bacteria form long strands and how this affects their infectivity. Their findings could lead to new therapies and have been published in the journal Cell.

Asylum seekers, refugees, those with HIV, incarcerated individuals, and homeless individuals often had TB prevalence ratios greater than 25 vs the general population.

A recent Npj Vaccines study discussed the success and challenges of developing different tuberculosis (TB) vaccine types.

16 October 2023 | Geneva -- WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Programme is pleased to announce the update and release of ScreenTB (screentb.org) - a web-based tool designed to assist countries in prioritizing risk groups for screening, as well as  in developing screening and prevention approaches tailored to country contexts.