A century-old tuberculosis vaccine could help fight Covid-19 in the elderly

Scientists have been searching for drugs to repurpose for Covid-19 since the pandemic began, and researchers in India are exploring a surprising potential treatment: a century-old tuberculosis vaccine. A team at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)’s National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis has investigated whether the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, traditionally used to inoculate against tuberculosis, could reduce Covid-induced inflammation in elderly people. The ICMR team said a major concern about using the BCG vaccine for Covid-19 was “the possibility of the vaccination inducing highly proinflammatory responses and thus worsening infection or disease in otherwise asymptomatic or mild cases”.