Abstract
BCG revaccination was introduced in Brazil in the mid-90's but no study has evaluated vaccine coverage through direct assessment of the scar. BCG scars were assessed in 2,785 public school adolescents, aged 13 to 14 years, in Southeastern Brazil, between September 2001 and May 2002. The prevalence rate of revaccination was 64.3% (95% CI: 62.5-66.0). Despite the efforts to implement and sustain revaccination, continuing this practice should be reevaluated by public health authorities due to the lack of evidence on its effectiveness.
Highlights
The administration of the second dose of BCG vaccine in Brazilian school students has started in the mid 1990s assuming that, among other rationale, neonatal BCG vaccination would become less effective over the years
Estimating vaccine coverage based on the number of vaccine doses administered and population information is quite a complex undertaking by health services, as the target population has a wide range of age groups, i.e., it includes first to eighth grade school children aged between 6–7 years and 15–17 years
The study results show similar coverage of first BCG vaccination to that reported in official estimates for the city of Belo Horizonte
Summary
The administration of the second dose of BCG vaccine in Brazilian school students has started in the mid 1990s assuming that, among other rationale, neonatal BCG vaccination would become less effective over the years. Revaccination was assumed to yield a booster effect and would prevent increasing tuberculosis rates in teenage years. No Brazilian studies have assessed BCG vaccine coverage through direct assessment of the scar, which has proved to be a highly sensitive and specific marker of first BCG vaccination in the first 14 years of life.[4]. The present study was conducted aiming at assessing the prevalence of vaccine scar associated to the first BCG vaccination and revaccination among public school students
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