"Major Funding Boosts Development of Groundbreaking TB Vaccine"
Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are investing around $550 million to fund the final stage of trials for the M72 vaccine, which could be the first new vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) in over a century. TB, a preventable and treatable bacterial disease, still affects 10 million people annually, causing 1.6 million deaths in 2021. The trial, set to take 4-6 years and involve 26,000 people across Africa and Southeast Asia, aims to test the vaccine's efficacy in preventing latent TB from becoming active. The existing TB vaccine, BCG, offers limited protection and wears off over time. The M72 vaccine showed around 50% efficacy in Phase II trials and could potentially save 8.5 million lives over 25 years, according to the World Health Organization.