This archive report was first published on 9 May 2020.
Published on May 9, 2020, a trial in South Africa has begun to test the effectiveness of a decades-old tuberculosis vaccine in protecting humans against the novel coronavirus.
The study, conducted by a clinical research organisation in Cape Town, TASK, at Tygerberg Hospital, an officially-designated Covid-19 treatment centre, aims to determine if a booster shot of the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine reduces the probability of infection and the severity of symptoms.
Since South Africa vaccinates all newborns with BCG, this study aims to determine if BCG re-vaccination reduces the probability of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the virus causing Covid-19) and/or the severity of symptoms of the disease, in a bid to help reduce the consequences of the pandemic, TASK said in a statement.
"The primary objective of this trial is to find out if BCG re-vaccination reduces disease severity, hospital admissions and death in frontline workers with direct patient contact," the statement added.
The BCG vaccine, developed at France's Pasteur Institute 100 years ago, is one of the world's oldest and most-trusted immunisations. It is primarily given to babies to protect them against tuberculosis for almost a century, but has been shown to shield them from other infections too, prompting scientists to investigate whether it can protect against the coronavirus.
Researchers in Australia, Spain, and the Netherlands are also testing the idea that the vaccine could have broad power to boost the immune system against the novel coronavirus. The Australian organisation behind the study, Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, said on Tuesday that the BRACE trial would be expanding from 2,500 people in Australia alone, to over 10,000 frontline workers in Europe as well.
