Scientists in the UK are set to test BCG, a vaccine created in 1921 to immunize against tuberculosis, to see if it could save lives from Covid-19.
Around 1,000 people will take part in the trial to be conducted at the University of Exeter, reports BBC.
However, people who had BCG shots in childhood may have to be vaccinated again, the report further says.
Vaccines are medical interventions targeting designated diseases, boosting our immune system against those diseases. They cause wide-spread changes in our body that can provide protection from diseases the vaccines are not intended for as well.
This gives scientists hope that along with protection against tuberculosis, the BCG vaccine may increase the reaction against coronavirus in our body.
Previous clinical trials data show that BCG has prevented 38% death in Guinea-Bissau by reducing pneumonia and sepsis cases among newborns.
There is also evidence that BCG prevented yellow fever virus in the Netherlands, while studies showed that it helped reduce infections of nose, throat and lungs by 73% in South Africa.
Prof John Campbell of the University of Exeter Medical School told the BBC that this study on BCG could be of major importance globally.
“Whilst we don't think it [the protection] will be specific to Covid, it has the potential to buy several years of time for the Covid vaccines to come through and perhaps other treatments to be developed,” he added.
The UK trial of this study is a part of the international Brace-study, which is also taking place in Australia, the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil, with nearly 10,000 people taking part in it.
Scientists will focus on healthcare workers affected by Covid-19 to quickly know if BCG’s effectiveness, since healthcare workers are at higher risk of being exposed to coronavirus.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of World Health Organization (WHO), said the BCG vaccine can “bridge the gap before a disease-specific vaccine is developed.”
“This would be an important tool in the response to Covid-19 and future pandemics,” the WHO chief said in an article published on famed medical journal the Lancet.
However, the BCG vaccine is a temporary solution; any enhanced resilience to coronavirus is expected to wane, which means people who were vaccinated with BCG in childhood will no longer have the protection.
Also, BCG will not train the immune system to create the antibodies that will fight off Sars-CoV-2.
