It’s just a matter of giving the shot in a different way, say scientists, and the result would be amazing. In a study done on monkeys, the vaccine was injected straight into the blood-stream and result was very encouraging. Dramatic improvement was seen over the traditional method of injecting the vaccine under the skin. The successful testing on the monkeys has given hopes of the vaccine working on humans as well.

TB, worldwide, kills over 1.7 million people a year. The only vaccine against TB, the BCG, is far less effective at protecting teens and adults from the main threat, TB in the lungs.

Researchers delivered TB bacteria straight into the lungs of the monkeys. They then injected higher than usual dose of the vaccine straight into the veins. Out of the 9 monkeys tested, no trace of the disease was found in 6 and very low levels of TB bacteria were found in the other three.