POST 01076E : BCG EFFICACY QUESTIONED
Follow-up on Post
01070E
(http://listes.ulaval.ca/cgi-bin/wa?A2=i ... org&P=1144)
9 April 2007
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Samuel Kamau (mailto:[email protected]) from Kenya sends these
comments on the news about BCG effectiveness, followed by some of my
own comments.
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What do we tell the public all this time we have been giving BCG has
been having no preventive impact on TB.? Have we been cheating them
we as health workers? We need a better explanation because if this
information reaches the parents and the general public it may have a
serious repercussion on the entire Epi programme and for the rest of
the vaccines not only to the general public and even the public
health workers. We need to be advised on how this issue should be
communicated to those affected.
Samuel Kamau
National EPI cold Chain and Logistics Officer, KENYA
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This news is already in the general public, having been published by
a number of newspapers and news agencies. I do not believe that
public health authorities ever cheated the public on this issue. BCG
effectiveness has always been considered rather poor. The only
consensus about BCG effectiveness in the scientific community is for
prevention of miliary TB and TB meningitis in young children.
Otherwise for preventing the spread of TB in the population, it is
considered rather ineffective. Many industrialized countries have
dropped BCG vaccination years ago. This has been the case of my own
country, Canada, where BCG has not been part of childhood
immunization for at least 20 years now, I believe.
What I find more amazing than this piece of news that is hardly
surprising in fact, is that BCG, one of the first vaccines produced
and administered on such a scale, seems to still be produced and
administered the exact same way than during Calmette's time. While
most other vaccines have benefited from scientific progress,
bio-engineering and so on, and seen major improvements, BCG seems to
have been ignored in the process. Have we all been so satisfied with
such an ineffective vaccine all these years??
The Moderator
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