ArticleLetters in applied microbiology2020
BCG vaccination early in life does not improve COVID-19 outcome of elderly populations, based on nationally reported data.
Article in Letters in applied microbiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- ACTIVATE-2: A Double-Blind Randomized Trial of BCG Vaccination Against COVID-19 in Individuals at Risk.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Trial
- Non-specific protection against severe COVID-19 associated to typhoid fever and DTP vaccination.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Previous BCG vaccination is associated with less severe clinical progression of COVID-19.BMC medicine · 2023Article
- BCG vaccination at birth and COVID-19: a case-control study among U.S. military Veterans.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2022Article
- BCG and SARS-CoV-2-What Have We Learned?Vaccines · 2022Review
- BCG Vaccination: A potential tool against COVID-19 and COVID-19-like Black Swan incidents.International immunopharmacology · 2022Review
- COVID-19 mortality and its predictors in the elderly: A systematic review.Health science reports · 2022Review
- A global survey in the developmental landscape of possible vaccination strategies for COVID-19.Clinical immunology (Orlando, Fla.) · 2022Review
- The Natural Effect of BCG Vaccination on COVID-19: The Debate Continues.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Article
- SARS-CoV-2 subunit vaccine adjuvants and their signaling pathways.Expert review of vaccines · 2022Review
- Effect of BCG on Respiratory Complications Caused by COVID-19: A Scoping Review.International journal of general medicine · 2022Article
- COVID-19 and Beyond: Exploring Public Health Benefits from Non-Specific Effects of BCG Vaccination.Microorganisms · 2021Review
- 100 years of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin immunotherapy: from cattle to COVID-19.Nature reviews. Urology · 2021Review
- BCG vaccination potential for COVID-19: an analytical approach.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2021Article
- BCG-induced protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection: Evidence, mechanisms, and implications for next-generation vaccines.Immunological reviews · 2021Review
- Why Are COVID-19 Mortality Rates by Country or Region So Different?: An Ecologic Study of Factors Associated with Mortality from Novel Coronavirus Infections by Country.Yonago acta medica · 2021Article
- COVID-19 Infection and Previous BCG Vaccination Coverage in the Ecuadorian Population.Vaccines · 2021Article
- The association of Coronavirus Disease-19 mortality and prior bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccination: a robust ecological analysis using unsupervised machine learning.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- On BCG Vaccine Protection from COVID-19: A Review.SN comprehensive clinical medicine · 2021Review
- Paediatric Contacts of Adult COVID-19 Patients: Clinical Parameters, Risk Factors, and Outcome.International journal of pediatrics · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The reported numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths were compared for 18 countries (14 in Western Europe, plus Australia, Brazil, Israel and the USA) to assess the effect of historic and current national BCG immunizations. In view of the high death rate for Covid-19 patients over 70 years of age, and given the fact that BCG vaccination is typically given early in life, we compared countries that had introduced BCG in the 1950s with those that had not. No effect on Covid-19 case fatality rate (CFR) or number of deaths per population could be demonstrated. Since some countries test for Covid-19 more than others, the effect of tests performed per million population on reported deaths per million was also assessed, but again did not demonstrate an effect of BCG vaccination in the 1950s. Whether countries had never used the vaccine, had historically used it but since ceased to do so, or were presently vaccinating with BCG did not correlate with national total number of deaths or CFR. We conclude that there is currently no evidence for a beneficial effect of BCG vaccination on Covid-19 reported cases or fatalities.
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.