In January 2024 the University of Oxford announced that the Jenner Institute is conducting a new study using the current licensed vaccine against tuberculosis. The Jenner Institute states that there is interest in considering a “booster” dose of BCG, which is “not always protective”. The study will involve administration of the vaccine for a second time to people who have already had it once before, allowing a comparison of whether inhalation provides greater protection than injection into the skin.
An urgent need
Professor Helen McShane, Chief Investigator, commented that “TB kills more people than any other infectious disease” and we “urgently need better vaccines”.
“This important new study will help us to see whether giving BCG more than once stimulates a stronger immune response and whether giving it by inhalation is better than giving it into the skin.”
The study is “really important” for enabling better understanding of the immune response and facilitating the design and testing of better vaccines. The study will also explore the difference between administration of BCG to the skin stimulates as strong an immune response in people with type 2 diabetes as in people without diabetes.
“We know that people with type 2 diabetes are more likely to get TB and part of this may be because the BCG vaccine does not work as well in this group.”
The investigation involves healthy volunteers, both with and without type 2 diabetes, who have previously been vaccinated with BCG. The cohort will be divided into 3 groups of 12 volunteers.
Dr Aye Thu, Clinical Research Fellow at the Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine reflected that “despite BCG vaccine being around for more than 100 years, tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death from an infectious cause”. Once patients are infected with TB, a “significant proportion of the population” continue to get sick or die “even with TB medication”.
“Having a new way of optimising the BCG vaccine will ultimately improve the health of people all over the world. This study will give the participants an opportunity to get involved in testing an exciting new way of delivery BCG vaccine through the aerosol route.”
Click here for more information on the trial.
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