This is an Australian study published in Science which for the first time details this mechanism which the discoverer of BCG, Albert Calmette, immediately spotted 101 years ago. A Swedish doctor, Carl Näslund, had also noted that infants vaccinated with BCG died two to three times less than the others. Over the years, studies have multiplied, including in Africa. And what these new Australian works show is the process: how the immunity of children evolves just after vaccination and provides protection against other germs (viruses, bacteria, fungi) other than tuberculosis.
Not only when two different strains of BCG are inoculated in vitro, they modify the DNA of white blood cells for 14 months, but in addition, these strains modify the bone marrow which itself will generate future white blood cells.
This is a protection that we see with other vaccines. On all the so-called vaccines “living” (those inoculated with the still active virus) – so polio in its version “drinkable”, or even measles-mumps-rubella. At the Pasteur Institute in Lille, Professor Camille Locht, who is director of research at theINational Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) is currently developing a new vaccine, also live, against whooping cough: in the laboratory, vaccinated rats find themselves protected against asthma. And Professor Locht to report the concern of his Danish research colleagues who expect a resumption of mortality among children when the drinkable polio vaccine will soon be withdrawn from the market.
“All of this has long been ignored by the WHO”, laments the researcher of German origin who recognizes however that the research was not successful but according to him, this Australian study changes the situation.
In the event of a new pandemic, will “covid type” one could imagine that BCG protects populations, the time to find a vaccine? In the United States, a study was underway when the Covid started: the idea was to look for the possible effect “positive” of this BCG vaccine on diabetes. Result: there were no cases of Covid in the group which had received three doses of BCG, unlike the unvaccinated group. The study of the academy of sciences (PNAS) – American-British team – concludes that a vaccine even nonspecific “could have reduced the number of Covid cases, hospitalizations and mortality during the winter of 2020 in the United States”.
In France, this would mean relaunching the BCG vaccination, which is no longer mandatory, just recommended in France since 2007 – the coverage rate is now 58% according to figures from Public Health France. Not to mention the production of vaccines, abandoned by the last French producer, Sanofi.