Covid-19 vs. BCG Universal Immunization: Statistical Significance in the Early Phase of the Pandemics

Serge Dolgikh

doi:10.28991/scimedj-2021-03-si-8

Abstract

A possible correlation between the impact of Covid-19 and universal immunization program against tuberculosis with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine was suggested previously, based on apparent correlation between lower impact of the epidemics and a record of national BCG immunization program. In this work a time-adjusted dataset of Covid-19 statistical data by national and subnational health jurisdictions at the time point of six months after the local arrival of the epidemics was used to perform a statistical analysis of the significance of the correlation hypothesis between universal BCG immunization and a milder early phase Covid-19 scenario. With the data accumulated up to the point of the analysis, the significance of the correlation hypothesis was evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively with the conclusion that it has achieved statistically significant level of confidence. The conclusions of this research can be used in development of epidemiological policy as well as the rationale to investigate the origin and mechanisms of a broad immunity protection that can be associated with an early-age exposure to BCG vaccine. Doi: 10.28991/SciMedJ-2021-03-SI-8 Full Text: PDF

Highlights

As the novel coronavirus Covid-19 epidemics has emerged and penetrated multiple national jurisdictions, a possible correlation between the impact of Covid-19 and universal immunization program against tuberculosis with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine was suggested by Miller et al (2020) [1], based on apparent correlation between lower rate and impact of the epidemics and a record of national BCG immunization program (UBIP)
Qualitative and quantitative methods such as: comparison of cases with similar socio-economic factors; trend analysis with respect to duration of UBIP; and evaluation of statistical significance based on observed values of sample means in the identified groups of cases were applied to analyze trends in development of the epidemiological situation in the selected jurisdictions with the intent to evaluate statistical significance of the correlation hypothesis between the impact of Covid-19 epidemics and a record of universal BCG immunization and impose quantitative constraints on the null hypothesis
The approaches in statistical analysis of the correlation hypothesis of a universal immunization program with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine and an early phase Covid-19 epidemiological scenario demonstrated in this work with an originally compiled time-adjusted dataset of national and subnational jurisdictions offer additional arguments in support of the correlation hypothesis, indicating a possibility of some form of general population-wide protection effect against Covid-19 resulting from universal immunization program with BCG vaccine, consistent with a number of earlier results

Summary

Introduction

As the novel coronavirus Covid-19 epidemics has emerged and penetrated multiple national jurisdictions, a possible correlation between the impact of Covid-19 and universal immunization program against tuberculosis with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine was suggested by Miller et al (2020) [1], based on apparent correlation between lower rate and impact of the epidemics and a record of national BCG immunization program (UBIP). Dolgikh (2020) [5] studied qualitative and quantitative analysis of distribution of Covid-19 impacts among national and subnational jurisdictions in Europe, North America and Middle East was performed with a number of observations consistently pointing to a possibility of a correlation between UBIP and a milder type of the epidemiological scenario in the initial phase of the Covid-19 epidemics. These findings were consistent with a number of further results in support of the correlation hypothesis [6,7,8]

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Conclusion