Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), is a major health concern being the 2nd top infectious killer in the world. Until the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic, Tuberculosis was the leading cause of death worldwide from a single infectious agent. According to Global Tuberculosis report 2021, published by WHO, an estimated 10 million active TB cases were reported in 2020 including~1.5 million deaths. Several countries in Asian, African and North American sub-continents are among the high TB burden countries. One fourth of the world’s population reportedly carries latent TB infection. HIV co-infection in latent TB individuals lead to reactivation of TB resulting in enhanced disease severity.
For TB prevention, several countries use BCG, which is the only licensed TB vaccine till date, and is in use since 1921. Moreover, its efficacy is limited only to children. Anti-TB chemotherapy is widely used for TB treatment; however, inappropriate use of these drugs or premature treatment interruption, often leads to MDR-TB or, pre-XDR TB, or XDR TB. The advent of MDR and XDR TB, poses a substantial threat to humanity and hampers the success of TB control programs. This situation necessitates to discover more efficient vaccines for prevention of TB in adults as well. Also, we need novel and effective treatment strategies for TB that can combat drug-resistant TB. One of the emerging treatment approaches include the host-directed therapies (HDTs), where various attributes of host-pathogen interactions are used to find novel treatment approaches. HDTs have the potential to improve clinical outcome of TB and can help to reduce treatment duration. Thus, HDT can contribute to global TB control programs by potentially increasing the efficiency of anti-TB treatment.
The scope of this Research Topic includes the following themes (related topics are also welcome):
1. Treatment approaches for Tuberculosis.
2. Vaccines for Tuberculosis.
3. Host-directed therapies for TB treatment.
4. Immunological studies related to new TB treatment strategies and vaccine candidates.
5. Immunology of TB-HIV co-infection.
6. Treatment strategies for curing TB-HIV co-infection/ or prevention of TB reactivation in LTBI.
Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), is a major health concern being the 2nd top infectious killer in the world. Until the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic, Tuberculosis was the leading cause of death worldwide from a single infectious agent. According to Global Tuberculosis report 2021, published by WHO, an estimated 10 million active TB cases were reported in 2020 including~1.5 million deaths. Several countries in Asian, African and North American sub-continents are among the high TB burden countries. One fourth of the world’s population reportedly carries latent TB infection. HIV co-infection in latent TB individuals lead to reactivation of TB resulting in enhanced disease severity.
For TB prevention, several countries use BCG, which is the only licensed TB vaccine till date, and is in use since 1921. Moreover, its efficacy is limited only to children. Anti-TB chemotherapy is widely used for TB treatment; however, inappropriate use of these drugs or premature treatment interruption, often leads to MDR-TB or, pre-XDR TB, or XDR TB. The advent of MDR and XDR TB, poses a substantial threat to humanity and hampers the success of TB control programs. This situation necessitates to discover more efficient vaccines for prevention of TB in adults as well. Also, we need novel and effective treatment strategies for TB that can combat drug-resistant TB. One of the emerging treatment approaches include the host-directed therapies (HDTs), where various attributes of host-pathogen interactions are used to find novel treatment approaches. HDTs have the potential to improve clinical outcome of TB and can help to reduce treatment duration. Thus, HDT can contribute to global TB control programs by potentially increasing the efficiency of anti-TB treatment.
The scope of this Research Topic includes the following themes (related topics are also welcome):
1. Treatment approaches for Tuberculosis.
2. Vaccines for Tuberculosis.
3. Host-directed therapies for TB treatment.
4. Immunological studies related to new TB treatment strategies and vaccine candidates.
5. Immunology of TB-HIV co-infection.
6. Treatment strategies for curing TB-HIV co-infection/ or prevention of TB reactivation in LTBI.
