Fewer coronavirus deaths seen in countries that mandate BCG vaccine

- Countries with mandatory policies to vaccinate against tuberculosis register fewer coronavirus deaths than countries that don't have those policies, a new study has found.

Dr Gonzalo Otazu, assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology and lead author of the study, started working on the analysis after noticing the low number of cases in Japan. The country had reported some of the earliest confirmed cases of coronavirus outside of China and it had not instituted lockdown measures like so many other countries have done.

Among high-income countries showing large number of Covid-19 cases, the US and Italy recommend BCG vaccines but only for people who might be at risk, whereas Germany, Spain, France, Iran and the UK used to have BCG vaccine policies but ended them years to decades ago. CAUTION URGED With nearly 900,000 cases and 45,000 deaths, the world is struggling to control Covid-19. Any vaccine for the disease is more than a year away from being available and the effectiveness of drugs under trial will not be known for months to come. That's why it's reasonable to look at whether BCG vaccine could provide protection against Covid-19, said Dr Eleanor Fish, professor at the University of Toronto's immunology department.

Correlation might not mean causation

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