Trial reportmBio2023
BCG Vaccination of Health Care Workers Does Not Reduce SARS-CoV-2 Infections nor Infection Severity or Duration: a Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.
Trial report in mBio, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
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, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- BCG vaccination of healthcare workers for protection against COVID-19: 12-month outcomes from an international randomised controlled trial.The Journal of infection · 2024Trial
- Impact of vaccine platform and BCG vaccination on antibody responses to COVID-19 vaccination.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Trial
- The TRIM-cancer paradox: BCG as a programmable vaccine platform and a mechanistic probe for rational immunotherapy design.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Review
- Unleashing the power of the BCG vaccine in modulating viral immunity through heterologous protection: A scoping review.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Article
- Nasopharyngeal microbiome composition by SARS-CoV-2 presence and severity.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Long-term effects of influenza and Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccination on systemic inflammation.Clinical & translational immunology · 2025Article
- The impact of mycobacteria-induced trained immunity on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine responses.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- Review
- Efficacy and outcomes of BCG re-vaccination in COVID-19: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression of randomized controlled trials.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2024Review
- Article
- Neuropathological lesions in intravenous BCG-stimulated K18-hACE2 mice challenged with SARS-CoV-2.Veterinary research · 2024Article
- Host Genetic Background Influences BCG-Induced Antibodies Cross-Reactive to SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein.Vaccines · 2024Article
- Diverse interactions ofFrontiers in tuberculosis · 2024Review
- Bacterial-induced or passively administered interferon gamma conditions the lung for early control of SARS-CoV-2.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Interpreting the Results of Trials of BCG Vaccination for Protection Against COVID-19.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2023Review
- Excluding Participants With Mycobacteria Infections From Clinical Trials: A Critical Consideration in Evaluating the Efficacy of BCG Against COVID-19.Journal of Korean medical science · 2023Review
- A protein-free vaccine stimulates innate immunity and protects against nosocomial pathogens.Science translational medicine · 2023Article
- COVID-19: An Update on Epidemiology, Prevention and Treatment, September-2023.Infectious diseases & clinical microbiology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination has been hypothesized to reduce severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, severity, and/or duration via trained immunity induction. Health care workers (HCWs) in nine Dutch hospitals were randomized to BCG or placebo vaccination (1:1) in March and April 2020 and followed for 1 year. They reported daily symptoms, SARS-CoV-2 test results, and health care-seeking behavior via a smartphone application, and they donated blood for SARS-CoV-2 serology at two time points. A total of 1,511 HCWs were randomized and 1,309 analyzed (665 BCG and 644 placebo). Of the 298 infections detected during the trial, 74 were detected by serology only. The SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates were 0.25 and 0.26 per person-year in the BCG and placebo groups, respectively (incidence rate ratio, 0.95; 95% confidence interval, 0.76 to 1.21;
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.