New tuberculosis vaccines.

The current tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), is a live vaccine used worldwide, as it protects against severe forms of the disease, saving thousands of lives every year, but its efficacy against pulmonary forms of TB, responsible for transmission of the diseases, is variable. For more than 80 years now no new TB vaccines have been successfully developed. Over the last decade the effort of the scientific community has resulted in the design and construction of promising vaccine candidates. The goal is to develop a new generation of vaccines effective against respiratory forms of the disease. We will focus this review on new prophylactic vaccine candidates that aim to prevent TB diseases. Two are the main strategies used to improve the immunity conferred by the current BCG vaccine, by boosting it with new subunit vaccines, and a second strategy is focused on the construction of new more effective live vaccines, capable to replace the current BCG and to be used as prime vaccines. After rigorous preclinical studies in different animal models new TB vaccine candidates enter in clinical trials in humans. First, a small Phase I for safety followed by immunological evaluation in Phase II trials and finally evaluated in large population Phase III efficacy trials in endemic countries. At present BCG prime and boost with different subunit vaccine candidates are the more advanced assessed in Phase II. Two prime vaccines (based on recombinant BCG) have been successfully evaluated for safety in Phase I trials. A short number of live attenuated vaccines are in advance preclinical studies and the candidates ready to enter Phase I safety trials are produced under current good manufacturing practices.