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The trials started at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, where 250 health workers were given BCG booster injections, while another 250 received a sham or placebo formula.
CAPE TOWN – Hundreds of South African health workers received a centuries-old tuberculosis vaccine Monday in a trial to see if the venerable formula can protect against the coronavirus.
Designed at the legendary Pasteur Institute in France 100 years ago, the Bacillus Calmette – Guerin (BCG) vaccine is one of the oldest and most reliable vaccines in the world.
“We vaccinated the first participant this morning,” Duncan McDonald, head of business development and marketing for a clinical research organization called TASK, told AFP.
The trials started at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, where 250 health workers were given BCG booster injections, while another 250 received a sham or placebo formula.
“There are observations that this BCG vaccine does something to the immune system that we don’t really understand,” said TASK founding professor Andreas Diacon.
Children immunized with BCG tend to have fewer respiratory illnesses, including asthma, he said.
“It makes the immune system better cope with respiratory retraction infections,” Diacon said. “No one really understands why it works.”
Diacon and his team want to determine if BCG could have an effect on the coronavirus by reducing the risk of infection or alleviating symptoms.
“If you can reduce the symptoms (COVID-19) just a little bit, it will probably make people survive better or even not have to go to the hospital or even not get sick,” Diacon said.
In South Africa, around 300,000 people contract tuberculosis each year, one of the highest infection rates in the world. Every year, 63,000 people die, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Diacon, an expert in internal medicine and pulmonology at Tygerberg Hospital and a professor at Stellenbosch University, said the trials focused on healthcare workers, as “we believe they will be more exposed.”
The plan is to increase trials to up to 3,000 health workers in Cape Town. Participants will be observed for at least one year.
Similar BCG clinical trials are underway in the Netherlands, Australia and France.
Participants in Australia and the Netherlands will receive the vaccine for the first time, as there is no BCG vaccine administration policy in these countries.
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