Puck T. Pelzer

KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation · Technical division

Early trials of novel vaccines against tuberculosis (TB) in adults have suggested substantial protection against TB. However, little is known about the feasibility and affordability of rolling out such vaccines in practice. We conducted expert interviews to identify plausible vaccination implementation strategies for the novel M72/AS01 E vaccine ca...

BACKGROUND Protection against infection by the bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine against Mycobacterium tuberculosis remains a subject of controversy. We investigated the association between BCG vaccination at birth and infection by M. tuberculosis. MATERIAL AND METHODS This was a secondary analysis of data from tuberculin skin test (TST) surveys in...

Recently, two Phase 2B tuberculosis vaccine trials reported positive efficacy results in adolescents and adults. However, experience in vaccinating these age groups is limited. We identified potential implementation strategies for the M72/AS01 E vaccination and BCG-revaccination-like candidates and explored their acceptability and feasibility. We c...

The impact of COVID-19 disruptions on global Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) coverage and paediatric tuberculosis (TB) mortality is still unknown. To fill this evidence-gap and guide mitigation measures, we estimated the impact of COVID-19 disruptions on global BCG coverage and paediatric TB mortality. First, we used data from multiple sources to es...

The Global Forum on Tuberculosis (TB) Vaccines was held virtually from 20 to 22 April 2021, marking its 20th anniversary. The Global Forum on TB Vaccines is the world's largest gathering of stakeholders striving to develop new vaccines to prevent TB. The program included more than 60 speakers in 11 scientific sessions, panel discussions, and worksh...

Background BPaL, a 6 month oral regimen composed of bedaquiline, pretomanid, and linezolid for treating extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is a potential alternative for at least 20 months of individualized treatment regimens (ITR). The ITR has low tolerability, treatment adherence, and success rates, and hence to limit patient burden...

Introduction Drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) care shifted from centralized to decentralized care in Tanzania in 2015. This study explored whether DR-TB training and mentoring supported healthcare workers’ (HCWs) DR-TB care performance. Methods This mixed study assessed HCWs’ DR-TB care knowledge, the training quality, and the mentoring around 454 HCWs w...

Objectives: There is conflicting evidence as to whether Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination offers protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection ascertained by a positive tuberculin skin test (TST). We investigated the association between BCG vaccination status and TST results in a set of surveys at increasing TST cut-off values t...