Tuberculosis (TB), an airborne-transmitted disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), remains a major threat to public health globally. It is still the important health concern among all notifiable infectious diseases in Taiwan despite a steady decline in both incidence and mortality rates since 1950.
Although Taiwan has a low to medium incidence of TB cases compared to all other countries, TB is still a significant public health threat, especially in high-risk groups and regions. Therefore, preventing of the transmission of MTB is always high-priority in national health policy globally. One of most important strategy in efforts to control the spread of TB is identification of high-risk groups and early intervention to interrupt transmission.
In the past years, we conducted A) molecular epidemiology B) mechanisms of pathogenesis C) novel vaccine development D) novel drug development researches to control spread of TB. More than 30 SCI papers contributed to understanding transmission dynamics, pathogenesis mechanism of epidemic Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in Taiwan and novel vaccine development was published. For further studies, the efficacy of novel BCG vaccine will be validated by aerosol infection model to test its ability against local MTB strains in Taiwan.