World Tuberculosis Day: EU-funded projects contributing to fighting the global tuberculosis epidemic

In 2023, 1.25 million people died from tuberculosis, making it one of the deadliest infectious diseases globally.  

24 March marks World Tuberculosis Day, an occasion to give the spotlight to HaDEA-managed projects funded under the Horizon Europe programme. These two projects are working towards new vaccine solutions and new therapies which are indispensable to combatting tuberculosis. 

TBVAC-HORIZON is aiming to develop effective novel vaccines to fight tuberculosis (TB) and improve TB vaccine availability and affordability. To reach this goal, the project is targeting four objectives:  

• Investigating the immune responses in TB-infected lungs,  
• Evaluating mucosal re-vaccination methods,  
• Identifying host immune response profiles and biomarkers, and 
• Advancing novel TB vaccine development.  

The project includes pre-clinical research as well as studies with humans, non-human primates and mice. The included studies make up the first integrated, comparative approach in this area.  

ITHEMYC is a multidisciplinary project with the goal to improve TB treatment by advancing new adjunctive TB immunotherapies. The project is testing a variety of compounds by combining in silico modelling and experimental research. Advanced pre-clinical models will be applied to the compounds with the greatest potential to test their efficacy. The long-term goal is to advance these compounds for clinical use, reduce treatment duration, decrease side effects, and lower current disease relapse rates.  

Background 

Horizon Europe is the research and innovation programme of the EU for the period 2021-2027. The aims of Cluster 1 ‘Health’ include improving and protecting the health and well-being of citizens of all ages by generating new knowledge, developing innovative solutions and integrating where relevant a gender perspective to prevent, diagnose, monitor, treat and cure diseases. Horizon 2020 (H2020) was the EU’s multiannual funding programme between 2014 and 2020.