Why You Soon May Be Hearing A Lot About Vaccine Called BCG In Relation To Coronavirus

There’s no vaccine for COVID-19, but data analysis by researchers at a major U.S. medical school suggest another vaccine, for something else, might be looked at for why the disease hasn’t been as disastrous so far for some people in some countries

BCG is a vaccine against tuberculosis that’s been in use for almost a hundred years. Many people in Asia, South America, Africa, and Russia get it as infants. (If you have friends who were born outside the U.S. and wonder why they have a vaccination scar on their upper arm, that’s why.) Americans don’t. Most Europeans don’t. Why? Because (oversimplifying here):

1. It isn’t super-effective preventing tuberculosis.
2. Tuberculosis isn’t that big a threat in the U.S. or other major industrialized nations.

Says the U.S. CDC:

“BCG, or bacille Calmette-Guerin, is a vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) disease. Many foreign-born persons have been BCG-vaccinated. BCG is used in many countries with a high prevalence of TB to prevent childhood tuberculous meningitis and miliary disease. However, BCG is not generally…