Thread: #TB Vaccine and #COVID-19

For many of us who were born in low-and-middle income countries, the #Tuberculosis vaccine was most likely part of your vaccine schedule. TB Vaccine, also known as the BCG vaccine, was first used on humans in the 1920s.

As the numbers of TB cases dropped in the late 1900s, several middle high and high-income countries in #Europe dropped the BCG policy between 1963 and 2010. Some never even adopted the #vaccine.

In #Africa, where TB was & is still prevalent (to some extent), adopted the BCG policy & continue to vaccinate their citizen til this day. I, like many others born in Africa, have a ugly scar on my right arm from it but this scar may actually be a saving grace?

NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine recently released an epi study (not peer-reviewed) that aimed to identify a
possible correlation between the existence of universal BCG vaccine policies and the morbidity and mortality associated to #COVID-19 infections all over the world.

WHAT DID THEY FIND?

Epidemiological evidence that BCG vaccination is correlated with reduced mortality rates produced by COVID-19.

Italy, where the #COVID 19 mortality is very high, never implemented universal BCG vaccination.

On the other hand, Japan had one of the early cases of #COVID-19 but it has maintained a low mortality rate despite not implementing the most strict forms of social isolation.
Japan have been implementing BCG vaccination since 1947

Iran had also been heavily hit by #COVID-19 and it started its universal BCG vaccination policy only in 1984 potentially leaving anybody over 36 years old unprotected.

But wait, what about China? They had a universal BCG policy since the 1950’s?

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), tuberculosis prevention and treatment agencies were disbanded and weakened. This could have created a pool of potential hosts that would be affected by and spread #COVID-19.

Spain started their universal policy in 1965 and lasted until 1981 (16 years) and has a high mortality rate (29.5 deaths per million inhabitants). In contrast, Denmark started their policy in 1946 and ended in 1986 (40 years) and has almost 10 times less deaths per million.

Whats the conclusion? Data suggests that BCG vaccination seem to significantly reduce mortality associated with
#COVID-19. The earlier that a country established a BCG vaccination policy, the stronger the reduction in their number of deaths per million inhabitants.

Caveats:
1) this epi data not clinical data so don't take this out of context
2) there is still not proof that BCG inoculation at old age would boost defenses in elderly humans

Where do we go from here? RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIALS!

In March 2020, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute started a Phase III, two group, multicentre, open label randomised controlled trial on Australian Healthcare Workers

They are trying to CLINICALLY FIGURE OUT if BCG vaccination will reduce the impact of COVID-19.

Why is this important? BCG might confer long-lasting protection against the current strain of
coronavirus.

There are so many questions that will have to be answered but this is honestly such good news for African and other low-and-middle income countries, who do not have the financial or medical structures to handle the impact of COVID-19.

As always: you girl always provides her sources:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.24.20042937v1
and https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04327206