TB or Not to Be?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is at it again, saving the world one million-dollar bill at a time. This time they've turned their sights to tuberculosis. And good thing, too, in light of these frightening facts from the World Health Organization:

Every second a new TB bacilli infection occurs somewhere in the world.One-third of the people in the world are infected with TB bacillus (only 5–10 percent of those will become sick or infectious, but considering that almost 2.3 billion are infected with the bacillus, almost 230 million people will get sick).

The Gates Foundation has given a three-year grant of $3 million to the TuBerculosis Vaccine Initiative (TBVI), according to a press release from the organization. TBVI is a Netherlands-based NGO focused on coordinating European efforts to develop safe, effective and affordable tuberculosis vaccines. The organization supports an international network of over 30 universities, institutes and industries involved in vaccine research and development.

The grant will assist with fundraising, communications and outreach activities to increase funding and support for the work of creating new TB vaccines. And they aren't kidding about the fundraising bit; over the next 10 years, TBVI aims to raise 200 million euros for vaccine development. New vaccines are sorely needed; the sole existing vaccine, called BCG, has shown disappointing results in young adults, who are the most likely to contract the disease.

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