New TB vaccine fails test

Here is a bad news for new medical science; the hope of finding a new tuberculosis vaccine which is the first in 100 years has been shattered.

[Read: Tips to Prevent Tuberculosis]

London scientists have announced on Monday that what was supposed to the most clinically advanced vaccine that once showed promise of stimulating high levels of immune response in adults apparently failed to protect infants against TB. This deadly air borne disease kills 1,000 people per day globally.

Scientists who developed the vaccine candidate MVA85A in the University of Oxford said that the vaccine failed to replicate the initial success in the first efficacy trial in infants like how it did in adults. Hence, the Bacille-Calmette (BCG) vaccine which was discovered about a century ago still remains the only vaccine for humans against TB.

Helen Mc Shane from the University of Oxford said in her statement, "Despite reaffirming the promising safety profile , the vaccine did not offer extra protection against TB in South African infants who had already received the BCG vaccine."