Mycobacterial Diseases
Open Access

Abstract

Revisiting Immunotherapy in Tuberculosis

Debapriya Bhattacharya, Ved Prakash Dwivedi and Gobardhan Das

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one third of the global population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), which is responsible for millions of death each year. Current therapy of TB consists of multiple expensive antibiotics and lengthy treatment, up to six months for drug-sensitive TB strains, and nine months to one year for drug-resistant TB strains. Therefore an alternative approach is urgently needed to fight this deadly disease. We propose immunotherapy which will enable to reduce length of treatment, toxic side effects, emergence of drug resistant variants, and prevent reactivation of the disease.