Tuberculosis 1998

About 30 m people will die from tuberculosis (TB) in the next decade, despite the availability of powerful drugs with activity against the causative pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A recent global survey, carried out jointly by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD), found resistance to anti-TB agents in every country which reported data. In several 'hot-spots', the prevalence of multi-drug resistance was as high as 54% of isolates, invoking the worrying prospect of TB running out of control. Steady progress is being made in identifying novel targets and finding new agents to treat TB. Completion of two genome sequencing projects will yield the entire nucleotide sequences of the M. tuberculosis laboratory strain H37Rv, and that of a recent M. tuberculosis clinical isolate. This information will further advance our knowledge of drug targets, and will assist studies aimed at identifying new vaccine candidates.