Tuberculosis dates back more than 9,000 years. It is the most infectious bacterial disease and in 2022 10.6 million people fell ill with it. Of these 23% occurred in Africa.
The only vaccine against tuberculosis, the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, is more than 100 years old and is primarily effective for infants and young children.
Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Pathology have made a significant breakthrough in vaccine development by gene-editing the BCG to make it more effective.
