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Mahesh

25/03/24 11:41 AM IST

Bharat Biotech commences clinical trials of Spanish tuberculosis vaccine in India

In News
  • Bharat Biotech has begun clinical trials of the Spanish anti-tuberculosis vaccine among adults in India, the Hydreabad-based pharmaceutical company announced recently.
MTBVAC
  • MTBVAC is the first live attenuated vaccine of mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated from a human.
  • The trials are carried out by Bharat Biotech in close collaboration with Biofabri.
  • The only related vaccine in use today, BCG (Bacillus, Calmette and Guérin), is an attenuated variant of the bovine TB pathogen.
  • It is at least a 100 years old and has a limited effect on pulmonary tuberculosis, which is responsible for the transmission of the disease.
  • MTBVAC has been developed to be a more effective and potentially longer- lasting vaccine than BCG for newborns and for prevention of TB in adults and adolescents, for whom there is currently no effective vaccine.
  • It is a giant step to test in adults and adolescents in the country where 28% of the world’s TB cases accumulate.
About TB
  • Tuberculosis, which is transmitted through the respiratory tract, kills at least 1.6 million people and infects at least 10 million worldwide each year.
  • In 90% of infections, the immune system recognises and controls the bacillus without causing disease.
  • However, in 5-10% of infected people, the bacillus develops tuberculosis, which is fatal in half of patients without treatment.
  • If the infection is in the lungs, it can find a free path to progress, multiply and spread the disease.
Source- The Hindu

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