Efficacy of Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) Vaccination in Reducing the Incidence and Severity of COVID-19 in High-Risk Population (BRIC): a Phase III, Multi-centre, Quadruple-Blind Randomised Control Trial

Efficacy of Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) Vaccination in Reducing the Incidence and Severity of COVID-19 in High-Risk Population (BRIC): a Phase III, Multi-centre, Quadruple-Blind Randomised Control Trial

Plain Language Summary The Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine has been studied previously in several settings, including reducing childhood mortalities due to viral infections and induction of trained immunity and reducing upper respiratory tract infections and pneumonia in older adults. This mu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sanjeev Sinha, Anuj Ajayababu, Himanshu Thukral, Sushil Gupta, Subhasish Kamal Guha, Ayan Basu, Gaurav Gupta, Prashant Thakur, Raghavendra Lingaiah, Bimal Kumar Das, Urvashi B. Singh, Ravinder Singh, Rajiv Narang, Dipankar Bhowmik, Naveet Wig, Dolan Champa Modak, Bhaswati Bandyopadhyay, Banya Chakrabarty, Aditya Kapoor, Satyendra Tewari, Narayan Prasad, Zia Hashim, Alok Nath, Niraj Kumari, Ravinder Goswami, Shivam Pandey, Ravindra Mohan Pandey
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Adis, Springer Healthcare 2022-10-01
Series:Infectious Diseases and Therapy
Subjects:
BCG vaccination
Incidence of COVID-19
Severe COVID-19
Symptomatic COVID-19
Vaccine efficacy
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/s40121-022-00703-y
Description
Summary:Plain Language Summary The Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine has been studied previously in several settings, including reducing childhood mortalities due to viral infections and induction of trained immunity and reducing upper respiratory tract infections and pneumonia in older adults. This multi-centre trial has tried to evaluate the efficacy of BCG revaccination in reducing the incidence and severity of COVID-19 infections in adults between 18 and 60 years of age belonging to the high-risk group owing to the presence of comorbidities including diabetes, chronic kidney disease, chronic liver disease and chronic lung diseases. A single dose of BCG vaccine produced significantly high titres of BCG antibodies lasting for six months. While there was no significant reduction in the incidence of COVID-19 infection, there was an 8.4% reduction in the incidence of symptomatic COVID-19 disease at the end of 9 months of follow-up. In addition, there were significantly fewer severe COVID-19 infections requiring hospital stay and oxygen support. However, the overall numbers of severe COVID-19 infections were low. Thus, the study shows that BCG can protect against symptomatic and severe COVID-19 disease. However, it might not reduce the incidence of new infections. The study results are significant for low- and middle-income countries without adequate coverage of primary doses of COVID-19 vaccination, let alone the booster doses. Future studies should evaluate the BCG vaccine’s efficacy as a booster compared with routine COVID-19 vaccine boosters.
ISSN:2193-8229
2193-6382

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