ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
BCG vaccine protection from severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 260 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Bacillus Calmette-Guerin Against Covid-19 for Prevention and Amelioration of Severity Trial
The Role of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin Vaccine (BCG) in the Clinical Evolution of COVID-19 and in the Efficacy of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) Vaccines
Who cites it
260 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 455 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Vaccination against influenza viruses reduces infection, not hospitalization or death, from respiratory COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of medical virology · 2024Pooled it
- Effectiveness of Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccination policies in reducing infection and mortality of COVID-19: a systematic review.Global health research and policy · 2022Pooled it
- Assessing the burden of COVID-19 in developing countries: systematic review, meta-analysis and public policy implications.BMJ global health · 2022Pooled it
- Reproducibility in pharmacometrics applied in a phase III trial of BCG-vaccination for COVID-19.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Efficacy and Safety of BCG Revaccination WithFrontiers in immunology · 2022Trial
- ACTIVATE-2: A Double-Blind Randomized Trial of BCG Vaccination Against COVID-19 in Individuals at Risk.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Trial
- The effect of BCG revaccination on all-cause mortality beyond infancy: 30-year follow-up of a population-based, double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial in Malawi.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2021Trial
- Trained immunity modulators: A new frontier in immunoregulation and disease intervention.Journal of advanced research · 2026Review
- Pre-COVID-19 ex vivo cross-reactive IFN-γ cellular response to SARS-CoV-2 spike overlapping peptides is more prevalent among Kenyan compared to Swedish adults.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- The RV144 Trial Might Still Yield Useful Information.Current HIV research · 2026Review
- BCG Vaccination Modulates Long-Term TNF-α and sCD40L in COVID-19: An Exploratory Longitudinal Study.International journal of general medicine · 2026Article
- The TRIM-cancer paradox: BCG as a programmable vaccine platform and a mechanistic probe for rational immunotherapy design.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Article
- Unleashing the power of the BCG vaccine in modulating viral immunity through heterologous protection: A scoping review.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Article
- Discussing the epidemiology of COVID-19 model with the effective numerical scheme.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Unraveling Rising Mortality: Statistical Insights from Japan and International Comparisons.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Review
- BCG vaccination: historical role, modern applications, and future perspectives in tuberculosis and beyond.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2025Review
- The underlying mechanism behind the different outcomes of COVID-19 in children and adults.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
200 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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- Erratum issued
- Update of
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
A series of epidemiological explorations has suggested a negative association between national bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination policy and the prevalence and mortality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, these comparisons are difficult to validate due to broad differences between countries such as socioeconomic status, demographic structure, rural vs. urban settings, time of arrival of the pandemic, number of diagnostic tests and criteria for testing, and national control strategies to limit the spread of COVID-19. We review evidence for a potential biological basis of BCG cross-protection from severe COVID-19, and refine the epidemiological analysis to mitigate effects of potentially confounding factors (e.g., stage of the COVID-19 epidemic, development, rurality, population density, and age structure). A strong correlation between the BCG index, an estimation of the degree of universal BCG vaccination deployment in a country, and COVID-19 mortality in different socially similar European countries was observed (
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.