Coronavirus has taken a heavy toll on countries around the world. From the most powerful United States, to weaker ones like Iran, everyone is fighting the virus. So far, more than 17 lakh people have been infected from the virus and 1 lakh have died. Coronavirus is arguably the worst public health crisis in the modern history, at least for Western Europe and the United States.
However, amid all this fight against the Coronavirus, one interesting pattern came out and that is, countries with universal Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) are less affected by the virus. Universal BCG vaccination is very common in Asian countries, thanks to higher number of tuberculosis and leprosy cases. From various researches it seems that the TB vaccination is working against Coronavirus too.
Clinical trials about efficacy of BCG vaccine against Covid-19 are underway, but many studies based on prevailing pattern have already been published. A study co-authored by Indian American Dr. Ashish Kamat, professor of Urologic Oncology (Surgery) and Cancer Research at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, has argued that the number of infections of Covid-19 as well as mortality rate are 10 times lower in countries with universal BCG. “While we expected to see a protective effect of BCG, the magnitude of the difference (almost 10 fold) in incidence and mortality (of Covid-19) between countries with and without a BCG vaccination program was pleasantly surprising,” said Dr Kamat.
The countries like the United States, Italy, Spain, where there is no universal BCG vaccination as TB cases were very low, are hit harder by the Covid-19. “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 program. The death rate was 4.28/million in countries with BCG programs compared to 40/million in countries without such a program,” concluded the study.
A direct correlation can, in fact, be found between countries with a mass/universal BCG vaccination programme and the intensity of Coronavirus. Deaths are higher in countries that do not have a the vaccination programme. The countries like the United States and Italy, which have discontinued their universal BCG vaccination program, are suffering heavily while countries like India, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore have controlled situation.
A study published in the pre-print Health Sciences Server stated, “Countries that have a late start of Universal BCG policy such as Iran in 1984 had high morality, consistent with the idea that BCG protects the vaccinated elderly population.”
This can indeed be corroborated in the case of Iran, given that the number 3,160 Coronavirus deaths in the country took place at a mortality rate of over 6 percent- higher than most other countries.
On the other hand, India has a robust BCG vaccination programme in place, and India was also an early mover in this direction having kicked off the mass immunisation programme as early as 1948.
Moreover, since the 1985 Universal Immunisation Programme and extended protection against Tuberculosis (TB) in India, there has been an extensive BCG coverage in India which now seems to have bolstered the fight against Coronavirus.
As a correlation is found between BCG vaccination and fewer Coronavirus cases, India too has started working in this direction. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India, world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has tied up with the Berlin-based Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology and Vaccine Projekt Management (VPM) company. The two will conduct clinical tests to ascertain whether the tuberculosis vaccine VPM1002 can also effectively serve as vaccination against Coronavirus.
On the clinical trials involving BCG vaccination as prevention against Covid-19, Dr Kamat said, “Indians have always been at the forefront of advances in medicine; here it is ironic that one of our oldest immunotherapies (BCG, used in India for decades) might help against the newest threat facing our civilization.”
If and when the studies about BCG vaccination protecting against, or at least reducing the intensity of Coronavirus outbreak are conclusively established, India would emerge as the global leader in the fight against Coronavirus given its recent experience and expertise in eradicating the disease.
