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New vaccines needed to stop Beijing TB strain
August 31, 2001The most common strains of tuberculosis in the most highly infected parts of the world may not be covered by the BCG vaccine according to Dutch medical researchers speaking today (Monday 10 September 2001) at the bi-annual meeting of the Society of General Microbiology at the University of East Anglia.
"We think that in Asia, the former USSR republics and other areas, Beijing type strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis play a major role in the TB epidemic" says Dr Dick van Soolingen of the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, in Bilthoven, the Netherlands. "The Beijing strains are also more frequently resistant to the most important drugs used to treat tuberculosis".
The researchers found that in China over 80% of the circulating strains belonged to the Beijing genotype, in Vietnam 50%, in the former USSR republics up to 60%, and in Japan 60%. In Vietnam this type of TB was particularly found in young patients, showing that tuberculosis is being actively transmitted.
Using new DNA fingerprinting techniques medical researchers can now distinguish between tens of thousands of TB strains. The Dutch scientists believe that the Beijing family of bacteria share particular selective advantages including the ability to gain resistance to the most important drug treatments such as isoniazide and Streptomycin, and ways to avoid setting off an immune response.
"We are trying to find out whether the current tuberculosis vaccines protect people against these highly infective strains," says Dr Dick van Soolingen. "In any case research should focus on developing new vaccines against the most successful and widespread M. tuberculosis genotypes, including the Beijing type, not just the laboratory strains".
Society for General Microbiology
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