<p>A nearly 100-year-old vaccine against tuberculosis appears to have imparted some kind of protection against COVID-19 with two studies demonstrating that nations with a BCG vaccination programme report nearly ten times less number of pandemic patients as well as deaths.</p>.<p>Most of the European countries including Italy, Spain and France, as well as the USA do not offer BCG as a part of their national immunization schemes. They are now among the worst affected with thousands of deaths."Over the preceding 15 days, the incidence of COVID-19 was 38.4 per million in countries with BCG vaccination compared to 358.4 per million in the absence of such a programme. The death rate was 4.28 per million in countries with BCG programmes compared to 40 per million in countries," says a study released by four researchers from the USA and Europe on March 27. "We found that over the 15 days period that we looked at (March 9-24) incidence and mortality from COVID-19 was almost 10 times lower in countries that had a BCG vaccination programme in place," Ashish M Kamat, a researcher at M D Anderson Cancer Centre at University of Texas and one of the coauthors of the study told DH.</p>.<p>Similar conclusions were drawn by a second study conducted by the scientists at the New York Institute of Technology. The researchers argued that the difference in the pandemic pattern in different countries might be partially explained by BCG vaccination."We found that countries without universal policies of BCG vaccination (Italy, the Netherlands, USA) have been more severely affected compared to countries with universal and long standing BCG policies," the New York researchers noted. Countries that have a late start of universal BCG policy (Iran that began in 1984) had high mortality, consistent with the idea that BCG protects the vaccinated elderly population.</p>.<p>"It is very evident that there is an inverse relationship between BCG vaccination and the incidence of COVID-19. The best example is Spain, where there is no mass vaccination and now has high incidence and mortality. But the neighboring Portugal, which is BCG vaccinated witnesses far less incidence and mortality," commented immunologist Gobardhan Das, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University who works on BCG vaccine but not associated with either of the two studies mentioned above. Brazil and Japan too were mass immunized with BCG and had far less incidence and mortality than that of the USA, Spain, and many other European countries, he said.</p>.<p>While China with a universal BCG policy since the 1950s may be cited as an aberration to the hypothesis, the New York researchers offer an explanation."During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), TB prevention and treatment agencies were disbanded and weakened. We speculate that this could have created a pool of potential hosts that would be affected by and spread COVID-19," they reported. None of the two studies have been published in a peer-reviewed journal but shared among the academic community.</p>
<p>A nearly 100-year-old vaccine against tuberculosis appears to have imparted some kind of protection against COVID-19 with two studies demonstrating that nations with a BCG vaccination programme report nearly ten times less number of pandemic patients as well as deaths.</p>.<p>Most of the European countries including Italy, Spain and France, as well as the USA do not offer BCG as a part of their national immunization schemes. They are now among the worst affected with thousands of deaths."Over the preceding 15 days, the incidence of COVID-19 was 38.4 per million in countries with BCG vaccination compared to 358.4 per million in the absence of such a programme. The death rate was 4.28 per million in countries with BCG programmes compared to 40 per million in countries," says a study released by four researchers from the USA and Europe on March 27. "We found that over the 15 days period that we looked at (March 9-24) incidence and mortality from COVID-19 was almost 10 times lower in countries that had a BCG vaccination programme in place," Ashish M Kamat, a researcher at M D Anderson Cancer Centre at University of Texas and one of the coauthors of the study told DH.</p>.<p>Similar conclusions were drawn by a second study conducted by the scientists at the New York Institute of Technology. The researchers argued that the difference in the pandemic pattern in different countries might be partially explained by BCG vaccination."We found that countries without universal policies of BCG vaccination (Italy, the Netherlands, USA) have been more severely affected compared to countries with universal and long standing BCG policies," the New York researchers noted. Countries that have a late start of universal BCG policy (Iran that began in 1984) had high mortality, consistent with the idea that BCG protects the vaccinated elderly population.</p>.<p>"It is very evident that there is an inverse relationship between BCG vaccination and the incidence of COVID-19. The best example is Spain, where there is no mass vaccination and now has high incidence and mortality. But the neighboring Portugal, which is BCG vaccinated witnesses far less incidence and mortality," commented immunologist Gobardhan Das, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University who works on BCG vaccine but not associated with either of the two studies mentioned above. Brazil and Japan too were mass immunized with BCG and had far less incidence and mortality than that of the USA, Spain, and many other European countries, he said.</p>.<p>While China with a universal BCG policy since the 1950s may be cited as an aberration to the hypothesis, the New York researchers offer an explanation."During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), TB prevention and treatment agencies were disbanded and weakened. We speculate that this could have created a pool of potential hosts that would be affected by and spread COVID-19," they reported. None of the two studies have been published in a peer-reviewed journal but shared among the academic community.</p>
