**The Role of Antibodies in the Defense Against Tuberculosis**

Armando Acosta, Yamile Lopez, Norazmi Mohd Nor, Rogelio Hernández Pando, Nadine Alvarez, Maria Elena Sarmiento and Aharona Glatman-Freedman

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/53950

**1. Introduction**

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Throughout history tuberculosis (TB) has been a health problem for humanity. In the beginning of civilization, when human population densities were sparse, this disease may have been fairly harmless. However, with the increase in population densities, probably from the 17th to 19th centuries, TB took epidemic proportions [1].

Bacille Calmette Guérin (BCG) is effective to prevent miliary and meningeal TB in infants [1]. The reports about the efficacy of this vaccine for the prevention of adults pulmonary TB are contradictory and the consensus is that the protection conferred by BCG against this form of TB is questionable [1]. The wide use of BCG vaccination has been unable to prevent nearly two million deaths associated with TB that are produced every year. Currently the World Health Organization no longer recommends BCG vaccination in children born from HIVpositive mothers which complicate the implementation of BCG vaccination programs [2]. The imple‐ mentation of standard drug treatment for TB is difficult in the areas of the highest incidence of the disease. Treatment is further complicated by the limited effectiveness of the current therapeutic schemes against drug resistant strains of TB [3-5].

Nowadays there is an increasing realization of the need for new animal models to test vaccine efficacy in more realistic scenarios, overcoming the limitations of current models in use. In addition, the elucidation of the significance of antibody-mediated defense against intracellular pathogens, in particular against *Mycobacterium tuberculosis*, constitutes an exciting new approach to improve the rational design of new vaccines, therapies and diagnostics.

© 2013 Acosta et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
