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. 2015 Oct 15;61Suppl 3(Suppl 3):S102-18.
doi: 10.1093/cid/civ609.

Perspectives on Advances in Tuberculosis Diagnostics, Drugs, and Vaccines

Marco Schito  1 , Giovanni Battista Migliori  2 , Helen A Fletcher  3 , Ruth McNerney  4 , Rosella Centis  2 , Lia D'Ambrosio  2 , Matthew Bates  5 , Gibson Kibiki  6 , Nathan Kapata  5 , Tumena Corrah  7 , Jamshed Bomanji  8 , Cris Vilaplana  9 , Daniel Johnson  10 , Peter Mwaba  5 , Markus Maeurer  11 , Alimuddin Zumla  12
Affiliations

Perspectives on Advances in Tuberculosis Diagnostics, Drugs, and Vaccines

Marco Schito et al. Clin Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Despite concerted efforts over the past 2 decades at developing new diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines with expanding pipelines, tuberculosis remains a global emergency. Several novel diagnostic technologies show promise of better point-of-care rapid tests for tuberculosis including nucleic acid-based amplification tests, imaging, and breath analysis of volatile organic compounds. Advances in new and repurposed drugs for use in multidrug-resistant (MDR) or extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis have focused on development of several new drug regimens and their evaluation in clinical trials and now influence World Health Organization guidelines. Since the failure of the MVA85A vaccine 2 years ago, there have been no new tuberculosis vaccine candidates entering clinical testing. The current status quo of the lengthy treatment duration and poor treatment outcomes associated with MDR/XDR tuberculosis and with comorbidity of tuberculosis with human immunodeficiency virus and noncommunicable diseases is unacceptable. New innovations and political and funder commitment for early rapid diagnosis, shortening duration of therapy, improving treatment outcomes, and prevention are urgently required.

Keywords: diagnostics; drugs; management; tuberculosis; vaccines.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Historical timelines of discovery of tuberculosis drugs and introduction of tuberculosis treatment regimens used at programmatic level. Abbreviations: DOTS, directly observed treatment, short-course; MMR, mass miniature radiograph; Mtb, Mycobacterium tuberculosis; PAS, para-aminosalicylic acid; TB, tuberculosis; WHO, World Health Organization.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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