Tuberculosis vaccines: the past, present and future

Tuberculosis still remains a leading infectious cause of death worldwide, although the BCG vaccine has been used for 80 years. There is an urgent need to develop improved BCG or new tuberculosis vaccines. This apparently represents a daunting task, since it will take a long time before a vaccine can be declared to be better than the current BCG vaccine, both in experimental and human studies. The current review takes a brief historic look at …