TB vaccine may limit Covid deaths

A tuberculosis vaccine routinely given to children in countries with high rates of that bacterial disease might be helping to reduce deaths from COVID-19, researchers reported in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found that countries with higher rates of Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccinations for tuberculosis had lower mortality rates.  A good example was Germany, which had different vaccine plans before East Germany and West Germany were unified. COVID-19 mortality rates among senior citizens are nearly three times higher in western Germany than in eastern Germany, where more older people received the vaccine as infants, they found.