Onderzoek naar nieuwe middelen voor diagnostiek, behandeling en preventie van tuberculose

- Tuberculosis control requires improved diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines. Their development is facilitated by progress in immunology, molecular biology, and genomics.

- In addition to sputum smear and culture, amplification techniques can already be used to diagnose tuberculosis and antigen-detection tests for this purpose are being developed.

- Molecular typing and DNA microarrays provide new insights in the natural history and transmission of tuberculosis.

- In addition to established drugs such as rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol, a limited number of new drugs have been discovered such as rifampicin derivates and fluorochinolones.

- Improved screening techniques and insights from genomics may lead to new drugs being discovered.

- Factors hampering the development and evaluation of new vaccines include problems with extrapolation from animal models, incomplete natural immunity, and limited knowledge about protective immunity.

- However, new candidate vaccines are being developed and will be tested on humans in the near future.