Kekkaku : [Tuberculosis]
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Mycobacterium tuberculosis is one of the most successful bacterial parasites of humans, infecting over one-third of the population of the world as latent infection without clinical manifestations. Over 8.8 million new cases and nearly 2 million deaths by tuberculosis (TB) occur annually. TB poses a significant health threat to the world population. ⋯ Furthermore, by using the cynomolgus monkey (similar to human tuberculosis), this novel vaccine provided higher protective efficacy (mortality) than BCG mortality. Furthermore, the combination of HSP65+IL-12/HVJ and BCG by the priming-booster method showed a synergistic effect in the TB-infected cynomolgus monkey (100% survival). These data indicate that our novel DNA vaccine might be useful against TB for human clinical trials.