South Africa starts coronavirus trial of TB vaccine

Hundreds of South African health workers were given a century-old tuberculosis vaccine on Monday in a trial to see whether the venerable formula can protect against coronavirus.

Devised at France’s legendary Pasteur Institute 100 years ago, the Bacillus Calmette–Guerin (BCG) vaccine is one of the world’s oldest and most trusted immunisations.

“We vaccinated the first participant this morning,” Duncan McDonald, head of business development and marketing at a clinical research organisation called TASK, told AFP.

Trials started at Tygerberg hospital in Cape Town, where BCG booster shots were administered to 250 health care workers, while another 250 received a dummy formula, or placebo.

“There are observations that this BCG vaccine does something to the immune system that we don’t really understand,” TASK founder professor Andreas Diacon said.

Children immunised with BCG tend to suffer less from respiratory illnesses, including asthma, he said.

“It makes the immune system cope better with respiratory retract infections,” said Diacon. “No one actually really understands why it works”.

Diacon and his team want to determine whether BCG could have an effect on coronavirus by reducing the risk of infection or easing symptoms.

“If you can reduce the (COVID-19) symptoms just a little, you will probably get people to survive this better or not even have to go to the hospital or not even becoming ill,” said Diacon.

In South Africa, around 300,000 people catch TB each year — one of the highest rates of infection in the world. Each year, 63,000 people die, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Diacon, an expert in internal medicine and pulmonology at Tygerberg Hospital and a Stellenbosch University professor said the trials focussed on health care workers as “we believe that they will be exposed most”.

The plan is to ramp up the trials to up to 3,000 health care workers in Cape Town. Participants will be observed for at least a year.

Similar BCG clinical trials are being conducted in the Netherlands, Australia and France.

Participants in Australia and Netherlands will be given the vaccine for the first time as there is no policy of administering BCG vaccine in these countries.

Comments

See how Tinubu reacts to #EndSARS protests, says police reforms has begun

See how Tinubu reacts to #EndSARS protests, says police reforms has begun National leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu has said the protest against police brutality in Nigeria is within the constitutional right of Nigerians. “Asiwaju Tinubu believes in the right of Nigerians to freedom of expression, assembly, and protest where and when necessary, he has always canvassed the need for people to explore peaceful channels to ventilate their views and demands,” Tinubu said in a statement by his media aide Tunde Rahman. “He believes the #EndSARS protesters have made their demands, which the Federal Government is studying.” Tinubu’s statement comes after being alleged of being one of the sponsors of the ongoing nationwide protest against brutality, extortion, harassment and extrajudicial killing by police personnel. The Cattle’s Breeders Association known as Miyetti Allah had earlier accused Tinubu of using the protest to distort the administration of President Muh...

Operators seek tax holiday, subsidy to save airlines

Operators seek tax holiday, subsidy to save airlines Worried by the fate that awaits local carriers, operators yesterday, appealed to the Federal Government to introduce some economic recovery measures to safeguard airlines from collapse. The operators, currently burdened by recurrent costs, are seeking aviation intervention fund at an interest rate of not more than five per cent. They suggested that government could take a cue from the American model of offering 50 per cent funding and grants, and 50 per cent palliatives through waivers and suspension of taxes, levies and fees among others. Besides, they called for the implementation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Executive Order on Removal of Value Added Tax (VAT) from all forms of transportation; as domestic airlines are still the only forms of transportation paying VAT. The current restriction of both local and foreign commercial flight services has forced domestic carriers into fin...

Senate to write Buhari over dead lawmaker on FCC board

Senate to write Buhari over dead lawmaker on FCC board Senate President Ahmad Lawan will draw the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari to the erroneous inclusion of a dead person on the list of nominees sent to the Senate, The Guardian has learnt. It emerged on Wednesday that the list for the appointment of members into the Federal Character Commission (FCC) included the late Tobias Chukwuemeka Okwuru, a former member of the House of Representatives from Ebonyi State. Okwuru, the 12th on the 38-person list died in February 2020, aged 59. Until his demise, he had acted as chairman of the House Committee on Environment and had represented Ikwo/Ezza Federal Constituency between 2011 and 2015. This is, however, not the first time names of the dead have featured in appointments by Buhari since he became president in May 2015. In 2017, the names of five persons said to be dead appeared on a list of appointments onto the boards of federal agencies and corporations. They were:...

Gtechone

Search This Blog