Is There Evidence that BCG Vaccination Has Non-Specific Protective Effects for COVID-19 Infections or Is It An Illusion Created by Lack of Testing?

Shivendu, Shivendu; Chakraborty, Saurav; Onuchowska, A; Patidar, Ankita; Srivastava, Arpit

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3579847

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Moreover, they are massively influenced by reporting biases (including the availability of diagnostic testing), which can be both sizable and variable across countries. The same reservation applies to fatality rate (total deaths/total cases) (18,26,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32) since the reporting biases are likely to be higher for confirmed cases than for deaths. We circumvented these problems in three ways.…”

Section: Deathsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mandated Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination predicts flattened curves for the spread of COVID-19

et al. 2020

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Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination may reduce the risk of a range of infectious diseases, and if so, it could protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Here, we compared countries that mandated BCG vaccination until at least 2000 with countries that did not. To minimize any systematic effects of reporting biases, we analyzed the rate of the day-by-day increase in both confirmed cases (134 countries) and deaths (135 countries) in the first 30-day period of country-wise outbreaks. The 30-day window was adjusted to begin at the country-wise onset of the pandemic. Linear mixed models revealed a significant effect of mandated BCG policies on the growth rate of both cases and deaths after controlling for median age, gross domestic product per capita, population density, population size, net migration rate, and various cultural dimensions (e.g., individualism). Our analysis suggests that mandated BCG vaccination can be effective in the fight against COVID-19.

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Section: Deathsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mandated Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination predicts flattened curves for the spread of COVID-19

et al. 2020

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“…Since the date of the introduction and overall effectiveness of SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccines are not known, alternative approaches for active immunisation against SARS‐CoV‐2 are under consideration. The role of Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccination in the prevention of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection and in the epidemiology of COVID‐19 has been frequently implicated 1 . BCG is an attenuated Mycobacterium bovis strain, a species of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, and is used worldwide for vaccination against M. tuberculosis .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of similar epitopes between severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 and Bacillus Calmette–Guérin: potential for cross‐reactive adaptive immunity

et al. 2020

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Objectives Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccination has been implicated in protection against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) and as a non‐specific immunisation method against the virus. We therefore decided to investigate T‐cell and B‐cell epitopes within the BCG‐Pasteur strain proteome for similarity to immunogenic peptides of SARS‐CoV‐2. Methods We used NetMHC 4.0 and BepiPred 2.0 epitope prediction methods for the analysis of the BCG‐Pasteur proteome to identify similar peptides to established and novel SARS‐CoV‐2 T‐cell and B‐cell epitopes. Results We found 112 BCG MHC‐I‐restricted T‐cell epitopes similar to MHC‐I‐restricted T‐cell SARS‐CoV‐2 epitopes and 690 BCG B‐cell epitopes similar to SARS‐CoV‐2 B‐cell epitopes. The SARS‐CoV‐2 T‐cell epitopes represented 16 SARS‐CoV‐2 proteins, and the SARS‐CoV‐2 B‐cell epitopes represented 5 SARS‐CoV‐2 proteins, including the receptor binding domain of the spike glycoprotein. Conclusion Altogether, our results provide a mechanistic basis for the potential cross‐reactive adaptive immunity that may exist between the two microorganisms.

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“…However, what do these data reflect, beyond the true nature of the virus? Of the few articles dealing with this question, authors [ 3 ] examined the protective effect of BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin) vaccine on COVID-19 infections and the death toll while using indicators such as the Human Development Index (HDI), per-capita GDP, and urban population percentage as additional control variables. Moreover, in line with [ 4 ], they applied the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as a proxy for the reliability of reported COVID-19 data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Societal Aspects in the Formation of Official COVID-19 Reports: A Data-Driven Analysis

Kurbucz

Katona

Lantos

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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This paper investigates the role of socioeconomic considerations in the formation of official COVID-19 reports. To this end, we employ a dataset that contains 1159 pre-processed indicators from the World Bank Group GovData360 and TCdata360 platforms and an additional 8 COVID-19 variables generated based on reports from 138 countries. During the analysis, a rank-correlation-based complex method is used to identify the time- and space-varying relations between pandemic variables and the main topics of World Bank Group platforms. The results not only draw attention to the importance of factors such as air traffic, tourism, and corruption in report formation but also support further discipline-specific research by mapping and monitoring a wide range of such relationships. To this end, a source code written in R language is attached that allows for the customization of the analysis and provides up-to-date results.

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Is There Evidence that BCG Vaccination Has Non-Specific Protective Effects for COVID-19 Infections or Is It An Illusion Created by Lack of Testing?

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Mandated Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination predicts flattened curves for the spread of COVID-19

Mandated Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination predicts flattened curves for the spread of COVID-19

Identification of similar epitopes between severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 and Bacillus Calmette–Guérin: potential for cross‐reactive adaptive immunity

The Role of Societal Aspects in the Formation of Official COVID-19 Reports: A Data-Driven Analysis

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