September 18, 2020

Activate: Randomized Clinical Trial of BCG Vaccination against Infection in the Elderly

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

Keywords (Tags): treatment

• A double-blind randomized trial (n=198) of BCG vaccination of elderly patients to protect against subsequent infections (September 2017 through August 2019) found that BCG vaccination increased the time to first infection (median 16 weeks vs 11 weeks) and reduced the incidence of new infections (25% vs 42%). Most of the protection was against respiratory tract infections of probable viral origin (HR=0.21, p=0.01). The authors suggest that BCG could potentially protect against COVID-19 among elderly people.

Giamarellos-Bourboulis et al. (Aug 31, 2020). Activate: Randomized Clinical Trial of BCG Vaccination against Infection in the Elderly. Cell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.051