Medical needs

Tuberculosis

The world’s largest infectious killer

Tuberculosis (TB) is contagious and airborne, spread by infected people that cough or sneeze. It usually affects the lungs, but may also affect the brain, kidneys and other parts of the body. TB remains a formidable Global Health challenge particularly considering the fact that about 1.7 billion people, 23% of the world’s population, are estimated to have a latent TB infection, and are thus at risk of developing active TB disease during their lifetime, as currently estimated by World Health Organization (2018).

An estimated 10 million people fell ill with TB and 1.5 million died in 2018, 5.7 million men, 3.2 million women, 1.1 million children and 860 thousand were people living with HIV. In 2020, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the first year-on-year increase (of 5.6%) of TB deaths since 2005 and the total number of TB deaths returned to the level of 2017 with 1.7 million deaths. This number is forecasted to further increase in 2021 and 2022. TB remains one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and the leading cause from a single infectious agent (above HIV/AIDS, not including COVID).

Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis and a health security threat. WHO estimates that there were 484’000 new cases with resistance to rifampicin (RR-TB) – the most effective first-line drug, of which 78% had MDR-TB. Worldwide, only 56% of MDR-TB patients are currently successfully treated.  In the modern world of global travel, and ease with which infections spread, it is very worrying to note that three countries accounted for almost half of the world’s cases of MDR/RR-TB in 2018: India (27%), China (14%) and the Russian Federation (9%)
Track the global TB drug pipeline

The world’s largest infectious killer

BioVersys is dedicated to bringing a new anti-TB molecule to the current drug armamentarium. BVL-GSK098 was identified with BioVersys’ TRIC technology and has a unique mode of action by inhibiting bacterial transcriptional regulators. The small molecule greatly augments the activity of, and reverts resistance to, the well-established second line drug ethionamide (Eto) at a lower and well-tolerated dose.

BVL-GSK098 is the first example of a drug targeting bacterial transcriptional regulators, a groundbreaking approach, to be assessed in human clinical trials. The program is supported by IMI2 JU European Union’s Horizon 2020 framework (TRIC-TB). For more information see Partners and Pipeline 

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Learn more about

Tuberculosis

  • The WHO TB information site
  • Global WHO TB report from 2020
  • The WHO publishes regular reports about TB. HERE, you'll find their Global Tuberculosis Report 2016
  • Click here, for the special TB section on the webpage of the CDC.
  • The CDC reported on the Treatment practices, outcomes and costs of MDR and XDR TB in the US
  • interesting video by the German magazin "Der Spiegel" from medi-cal correspondent Christoph Specht about TB in South-Africa (in Ger-man)
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