BCG – originally against tuberculosis – also protects against various infections, including respiratory. It is effective on the whole population, especially the elderly.
- The BCG vaccine protects young children against tuberculosis and “boosts” the immune system.
- Researchers have injected this vaccine into elderly people and have observed an improvement in their immune system, particularly against respiratory infections, without noticing any side effects.
What if the BCG vaccine did not only protect children? This vaccine, discovered in 1921, protects the youngest from tuberculosis but also stimulates the entire immune system. Faced with this beneficial property, a team of Greek-Dutch researchers wanted to administer it to the elderly to find out if it could also protect them by reducing the number of infections. This research program called “Activate” has published the preliminary results of its latest experiment on real people in the American magazine Cell this August 31. Scientists are optimistic.
“Two years ago, we launched the ACTIVATE study, with the aim of showing whether BCG vaccination could protect against infections in vulnerable elderly peopleexplains experimental medicine professor Mihai Netea at Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands). Patients over 65 admitted to hospital were randomized to receive BCG or placebo vaccination upon discharge. We followed them for a year to see if BCG could protect them against a wide range of infections.“In total, 198 elderly people took part in this experiment. However, even before completing all the planned tests, the team noticed that in one year 42% of people who received a placebo developed an infection, whereas they are only 25% for those having received an injection of the BCG vaccine.
However, for the 25% of people who developed an infection despite BCG, it seems that they had this complication later compared to the 42% of seniors who received placebo. Concretely, the group with the newly infected placebo developed this problem on average 11 weeks after the injection, while those who had been vaccinated developed it on average after 16 weeks. Thus, it appears that BCG still protects those who have become ill by delaying the emergence of infection. Moreover none no side effects were found among all older people.
Effective against respiratory infections
By comparing the nature of the infections that occurred in the two groups, the researchers made an interesting observation. “Besides the clear effect of BCG vaccination on infections in general, the most important observation was that BCG could protect mainly against respiratory infections: elderly people vaccinated with BCG had 75% fewer respiratory infections than elderly people receiving the placebo“, assures Pr Evangelos J. Giamarellos-Bourboulis, co-coordinator of the study at the 4th Department of Internal Medicine of the “ATTIKON” University Hospital of Athens (Greece). Data that resonates with current medical news
As the research program started before the start of the pandemic, the researchers could not measure the effect of BCG against this new coronavirus. They were to extend the tests to August 2020 but preferred to make their unfinished work public. New studies must be carried out in order to observe whether BCG has a protective effect on the elderly against Covid-19.
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