Use of BCG Vaccine as a Preventive Measure for COVID-19 in Health Care Workers

The disease promoted by coronavirus (COVID-19) is caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) caused by Coronavirus type 2 (CoV2), being the first cases identified in December 2019 in China after exposure to the animal market in Wuhan city, China. From the first case to the present day, the COVID-19 epidemic has been identified in 185 countries, with the notification of 2,666,154 cases and 186,144 deaths. In Brazil, more than 45,757 cases and 2,906 confirmed deaths by COVID-19 have been confirmed (Visualized on Apr 23 2020). In our country, to date, testing for COVID-19 occurs only in severe cases and few centers offer the service to health care workers, a population at high risk of infection. BCG is a vaccine produced from a live attenuated strain derived from a Mycobacterium bovis isolate and is widely used worldwide as a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, but there are studies demonstrating non-specific immunotherapeutic mechanisms of this vaccine that signal a possible relationship with the lowest morbidity and mortality associated with COVID-19 infections worldwide. The present study aims to analyze the role of BCG in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection and also in the occurrence of severe forms of COVID-19 in addition to evaluating the immune response mediated by this vaccine in voluntary health care workers.