Title:
Can a century-old TB vaccine steel the immune system against the new coronavirus?
Author:
Jop de Vrieze
Published:
Science, 23 March 2020
From the article:
Researchers in four countries will soon start a clinical trial of an unorthodox approach to the new coronavirus. They will test whether a century-old vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial disease, can rev up the human immune system in a broad way, allowing it to better fight the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 and, perhaps, prevent infection with it altogether.
To read this article:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/can-century-old-tb-vaccine-steel-immune-system-against-new-coronavirus
See also:
The Brief – Is Eastern Europe more resilient to COVID-19?
Author:
Georgi Gotev
From the article:
The vaccine, known as BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin), is indeed 100 years old and has been unevenly used in the eastern and western part of Europe.
According to Prof. Dr Lyubima Despotova, president of the Bulgarian Society for Long-Term Care and Palliative Medicine, the worldwide distribution map of COVID-19 “overlaps” with the vaccine policy map. Countries that have abandoned BCG are currently in the midst of the epidemic and are heavily affected.
To read this article:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/coronavirus/news/the-brief-is-eastern-europe-more-resilient-to-covid-19/