BCG tuberculosis vaccine may be protective against COVID-19

[rvby]

economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/nations-without-bcg-vaccination-saw-higher-cases/articleshow/74956201.cms?from=mdr

Countries with a broad BCG vaccination program seem to have 1/10 the infection rates and illness rates compared to those without such a program. Sounds like there will be some trials of the vaccine for frontline staff to see if it helps reduce mortality.

I grew up in a developing country and received the BCG. Turns out it protects me from all kinds of bugs! Not just coronaviruses...

It's correlation is probably to do with hygiene practices tbh... Widespread vaccination programmed signify hygiene and health awareness

Immunity isn’t indefinite anyway, it can wear off from 15 years upwards. I was vaccinated at 14 or 15 years and developed active TB when I was 30

I understood that while BCG does not prevent you from getting covid19, there is a reason to believe it makes the course of illness milder in general (less deaths when looking at population level). It is a well established vaccine so worth a shot in absence of specific covid19 vaccine. Trials with 1000s of healthcare workers are underway in several countries.

I've also had hep b jab
Would that help??

I’m in Ireland and everyone had it as a newborn up until 2015 when it stopped .
My 7 year old had it but toddler didn’t .
We all ( family / friends) still have the mark in our arm !

Why @Riv12345 would hep b help?

Sorry if I've missed something there.

I'm 53 and had the vaccine at school but then years later I became a nurse and worked with Tuberculosis patients. I was given the vaccine again ( about 17 years ago). They gave me it in the wrong arm ( the respiratory consultant told me afterwards) anyway I still caught corona virus and it's left me with chest pains a month after first symptoms. Maybe I would have been worse without it. Who knows?

why would hep b help?

I don’t think it would - CV and hep B are completely different viruses (as different as a cat and an elephant) but I see the line of thought thinking one virus immunisation might provide protection from another. Who knows, if it could but vaccines are developed to be very targeted to specific diseases and their mechanisms.

Also, at least in the U.K., clinical staff routinely get vaccinated for hep b so I think any protection benefits would have emerged by now.

I had the BCG and was born in 1992, must have been one of the last to get it.

Why would hep b help?
CV and hep B are completely different viruses (as different as a cat and an elephant)...vaccines are developed to be very targeted to specific diseases and their mechanisms

Actually, it is valid to ask whether the hep B vaccine might help (probably not, unfortunately, @Riv12345). TB is caused by a bacteria so nothing like coronavirus. This paper about cross-reactivity and cross-protection from vaccines (when a vaccine provides protection from pathogens other than the one the vaccine is for) is easy to understand even if you aren't a scientist:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X18316505

I was vaccinated as a teenager, my younger sister wasn't as the programme had been stopped. My uncle died of TB in late 2000s and I had to take my sister to a TB centre for testing and vaccination as she was exposed and not vaccinated. So hers would be more recent, but I thought the protectivity regarding Covid19 was weeks rather than years. Not sure where I read that though!

*Droppedboxxedruth

I didn't say it would help!!

I was asking that's why I put the question mark afterwards*

I had it around 20 years ago. DPs did not receive it In the 60s/70s.

2x DC have had it (London)

I'm 30 and BCG was still around when I was at school. In secondary we all had to have BCG at school as part of mass vaccination