COVID-19 Death and BCG Vaccination

Article information

Tuberc Respir Dis. 2021;84(1):84-84

Publication date (electronic) : 2020 October 8

doi : https://doi.org/10.4046/trd.2020.0115

Viroj Wiwanitkit, M.D.

Department of Community Medicine, Dr DY Patil University, Pune, India

Address for correspondence: Viroj Wiwanitkit, M.D. Department of Community Medicine, Dr DY Patil University, Sant Tukaram Nagar, Pimpi Colony, Pune, Maharashtra 411018, India Phone: 91-20-27805100, Fax: 91-20-27805100 E-mail: wviroj@yahoo.com

Received 2020 September 17; Revised 2020 September 30; Accepted 2020 October 7.

Dear Editor, I would like to share ideas on the publication “COVID-19 Death and BCG Vaccination Programs Worldwide” [1]. Jirjees et al. [1] concluded that “it can be concluded that the early establishment of BCG vaccination policy in any country is a key element in reducing the number of COVID-19 and tuberculosis death cases.” The interrelationship between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and tuberculosis is interesting. Whether bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) can help prevent the infection and mortality due to COVID-19 is an issue to be further studied. From an early report from Indochina, the co-existence between both COVID-19 and tuberculosis is possible [2]. In that area, Thailand, the BCG is mandatory and more than 99% coverage rate is officially declared. However, there is still a problem of COVID-19 infection and death. Focusing on infected case and death case, it appeared that all cases had BCG vaccination. There is no association between BCG vaccination history and COVID-19 infection or COVID-19 death. In fact, there is also no identified biological process of BCG that can link to the pathogenesis process of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Therefore, it seems that it might not confirm that BCG vaccination can affect the incidence of COVID-19 infection and death.