ICMR to launch study to evaluate efficacy of BCG vaccine against coronavirus COVID-19 in elderly

Amid the rising coronavirus COVID-19 cases in the country, the India Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has decided to conduct a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the BCG vaccination in preventing morbidity and mortality due to the highly contagious virus in elderly individuals between 60 to 95 years of age. The ICMR teams will conduct the study on the people living in COVID-19 hotspots across the country.

It is learnt that the ICMR will carry out the study in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi.

The stidy will be lead by Chennai-based ICMR's National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT). In Chennai, the ICMR will conduct the study in collaboration with the Greater Chennai Corporation and Tamil Nadu's Department of Public Health.

"The study will document whether BCG vaccine can prevent the occurrence of the SARS-CoV-2 infection and its progression and death associated with COVID-19 among elderly individuals. The study uses the same BCG vaccine that is administered to newborn babies as a part of National Immunization programme for more than 50 years in this country," Dr Subash Babu, Scientific Director at National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis told ANI.

"Based on the capacity of BCG to reduce the incidence of respiratory tract infections in children and adults, to exert antiviral effects in experimental models; and to reduce viremia in an experimental human model of viral infection, the hypothesis is that BCG vaccination will partially protect against mortality in high-risk, elderly individuals," he added.

Babu also noted that several clinical trials using BCG vaccine are alreayd under progress on elderly individuals in different parts of the world.

"We have to evaluate the effectiveness of BCG vaccination in terms of reduction in the cumulative incidence of hospital admission and Intensive Care Admission, reduction in the incidence of other respiratory febrile illness, to determine the innate and adaptive immune responses, IgM, IgG and IgA antibody titers generated by BCG vaccination (both total and SARS-Cov2 specific) in a subset of individuals and to measure biomarkers induced by BCG vaccination as correlates of risk or protection against SARS-Cov2 in a subset of individuals," added Dr Babu.

Apart from Chennai's NIRT site, the five other centres are National Institute of Occupational Health, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, National Institute for Research in Environmental Health in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, GS Medical College and KEM Hospital in Mumbai Maharashtra, National Institute for Implementation Research on Non-Communicable Diseases in Jodhpur and AIIMS, New Delhi.