Study Says TB Vaccine Losing Power

A new study concludes the bacillus used in tuberculosis vaccines is losing its power to combat the disease, the Toronto Sun reported.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online, says the genome of bacillus Calmette-Guerin has shown the organism has mutated significantly since it was first used in 1921, the newspaper said.

TB rates have skyrocketed since the 1980s in places such as the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa, the newspaper said.

Dr. Marcel Behr of Montreal’s McGill University says the new study is a clarion call to create a better vaccine. He said one option is to recreate the original BCG genome and reconstruct something more closely resembling the original bacterium.

The World Health Organization estimates 1.7 million people died from TB in 2004.