The international BRACE trial, which looked into whether the BCG vaccine is effective against COVID-19, found that it does not lower the risk of the disease for healthcare workers. The vaccine’s impact on other infections and COVID-19 vaccine responses will be the subject of subsequent research.
A leading international trial of the tuberculosis vaccine BCG’s immune-boosting properties has found that it does not protect healthcare workers from COVID-19.
The Preliminary Support Preliminary COVID Laborers
The Support preliminary, drove by Murdoch Youngsters’ Exploration Organization, to test whether the BCG immunization could safeguard medical care laborers against SARS-CoV-2 in the initial a half year after immunization found it didn’t diminish the gamble of creating Coronavirus among those on the pandemic cutting edge.
BCG is still administered to over 130 million newborns annually for the purpose of preventing tuberculosis. It was initially developed for this purpose. The trial was based on previous research that demonstrated that BCG also increased “front-line” immunity in infants and protected adolescents and adults from respiratory infections. In the event of a pandemic like COVID-19, it was hoped that the vaccine could be used to extend critical time until disease-specific vaccines could be developed and tested.
Based on the second stage of the BRACE randomized controlled trial, the study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, included 3988 of the nearly 7000 healthcare workers who signed up at 36 sites in Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Brazil.
In the first six months after joining the trial, the BCG group had a risk of 14.7% of symptomatic COVID-19, while the placebo group had a risk of 12.3%.
Chief Principal Investigator of BRACE, Professor Nigel Curtis of Murdoch Children’s and the University of Melbourne, suggested that the slightly higher prevalence of symptomatic COVID-19 in the BCG group might be explained by the vaccine’s stronger immune responses.