The advent of more effective vaccines against tuberculosis is an increasingly realistic possibility, say public health experts with an interest in the illness. Tuberculosis is currently the world’s second deadliest infection, with 8.8 million new cases in 2010.

“In the last decade we’ve gone from having no vaccines in development to now having 12 different candidates at various stages in the clinic and in human trials,” said Ann Ginsberg, vice president of scientific affairs for Aeras, a foundation devoted to the development of vaccines against tuberculosis.

Increasingly concerned over the rise of drug resistant tuberculosis, she and others in the field have long insisted that …