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0:00
Hello. My name is Tom Evans.
I am a physician and the chief
executive officer of Aeras,
a nonprofit biotechnology
organization that
is dedicated to
developing tuberculosis
vaccines for the developing
world and all of the world.
And I'd like to talk to
you today about where
we are with TB vaccines,
noting that it's May of 2015.
And this will be a
fast-moving field.
0:22
To start with, Mycobacterium
tuberculosis is the bacterial cause
of this disease.
It's important to realize
that this bacterium
has co-evolved with man
sometime over the last 10,000
to 70,000 years.
There is still some controversy.
And it's very unique in that it
is covered with these waxy mycolic
acids and glycolipid
structures that make it
very different from
some other bacteria.
They give it a protective coating.
And they are part
of its pathogenesis.
0:48
Now, tuberculosis, why do
a vaccine for tuberculosis?
Tuberculosis has been
mother nature's number one
killer over the past two centuries.
Over the past two centuries,
a billion people,
that was with a B, have
died from tuberculosis.
Last year, tuberculosis
was tied with HIV
as the leading cause of infectious
disease death in the world.
A person dies from
tuberculosis every 21 seconds.
There are 1.5 million deaths
per year, somewhere between 9
and 10 million new cases per year.
And this is an
epidemic that continues
unabated throughout the world.
1:25
Unlike some other diseases,
although the incidence is highest
in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in
the cone of Africa down into South
Africa, Botswana, Mozambique area,
the burden is highest in India,
with the largest number of
cases due to their population.
The second highest number
of cases is in China.
And the third highest number
of cases is in Indonesia.
So the BRICS countries, as
well as Sub-Saharan Africa,
really bear most of
the burden from TB.
