Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced mortality for COVID-19

  1. Aaron Miller
  2. Mac Josh Reandelar
  3. Kimberly Fasciglione
  4. Violeta Roumenova
  5. Yan Li
  6. Gonzalo H. Otazu

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

COVID-19 has spread to most countries in the world. Puzzlingly, the impact of the disease varies in different countries. This variation is attributed to differences in cultural norms, mitigation efforts, and health infrastructure. Here, we propose that national differences in COVID-19 impact could be partially explained by different national policies with respect to Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination. BCG vaccination has been reported to offer broad protection from other respiratory infections besides tuberculosis. We compared BCG vaccination policies with the morbidity and mortality for COVID-19 for middle-high and high-income countries. We found that countries without universal policies of BCG vaccination (Italy, the Netherlands, USA) have been more severely affected compared to countries with universal and long-standing BCG policies. The difference cannot be accounted for by differences in disease onset, adoption of early social distancing policies, state of health services, nor income level. Reduced mortality suggests BCG vaccination could be a potential new tool in the fight against COVID-19.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.24.20042937v2 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.24.20042937: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Multivariate linear analyses were done using the function fitlm in Matlab (R2017b).
    Matlab
    suggested: (MATLAB, RRID:SCR_001622)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.24.20042937v1 on medRxiv