[Development of new vaccination strategies against tuberculosis]

Tuberculosis still represents a major global health problem. Despite the possibility of chemotherapeutic treatment, effective control of the disease could best be achieved by the adjunct of active vaccination procedures. BCG-vaccination, unfortunately proved less effective in developing countries than originally thought. Therefore, the development of a new generation of tuberculosis vaccines should be considered. Recent achievements in biotechnology have laid the basis for such a development. In this article the major steps towards a new tuberculosis vaccine will be discussed briefly.