scholarly journals A Short History of the BCG Vaccine

Author(s):  
Georgiana Bianca Constantin ◽  
Ionuţ Căluian

BCG vaccine continues to be controversial, live attenuated BCG is still the only vaccine in use which is able to prevent TB in humans. It is still difficult to determine which strain should be used and further detailed analysis of the genomics and immunogenicity of BCG sub-strains may provide an answer to this important question. The only vaccine available is the BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guerin), that has been used for about 100 years, with remarkable results. The majority of the world followed the lead of Europe and the WHO and introduced routine BCG vaccination according to various schedules. According to the Methodological Guide for the Implementation of the National Program for the Prevention, Surveillance and Control of Tuberculosis, BCG vaccination is indicated for all newborns, at the age of 2-7 days (if there are no contraindications), before discharge from maternity and without preliminary tuberculin test.

Moreana ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (Number 164) (4) ◽  
pp. 187-206
Author(s):  
Clare M. Murphy

The Thomas More Society of Buenos Aires begins or ends almost all its events by reciting in both English and Spanish a prayer written by More in the margins of his Book of Hours probably while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. After a short history of what is called Thomas More’s Prayer Book, the author studies the prayer as a poem written in the form of a psalm according to the structure of Hebrew poetry, and looks at the poem’s content as a psalm of lament.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue-Cune Chang

BACKGROUND The Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) is the new form of an acute infectious respiratory disease and has quickly spread over most continents in the world. Recently, it has been shown that Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) might protect against COVID-19. This study aims to investigate the possible correlation between BCG vaccination and morbidity/mortality/recovery rate associated with COVID-19 infection. OBJECTIVE Our findings confirm that the BCG vaccination might protect against COVID-19 virus infection. METHODS Data of COVID-19 confirmed cases, deaths, recoveries, and population were obtained from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ (Accessed on 12 June, 2020). To have meaningful comparisons among countries’ mortality and recovery rates, we only choose those countries with COVID-19 infected cases at least 200. The Poisson regression and logistic regression were used to explore the relationship between BCG vaccination and morbidity, mortality and recovery rates. RESULTS Among those 158 countries with at least 200 COVID-19 infected cases, there were 141 countries with BCG vaccination information available. The adjusted rates ratio of COVID-19 confirmed cases for Current BCG vaccination vs. non-Current BCG vaccination was 0.339 (with 95% CI= (0.338,0.340)). Moreover, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) of death and recovery after coronavirus infected for Current BCG vaccination vs. non-Current BCG vaccination were 0.258 (with 95% CI= (0.254,0.261)) and 2.151 (with 95% CI= (2.140,2.163)), respectively. CONCLUSIONS That data in this study show the BCG might provide the protection against COVID-19, with consequent less COVID-19 infection and deaths and more rapid recovery. BCG vaccine might bridge the gap before the disease-specific vaccine is developed, but this hypothesis needs to be further tested in rigorous randomized clinical trials. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT RR2-https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.14.20131268


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-165
Author(s):  
Tega Brain

This paper considers some of the limitations and possibilities of computational models in the context of environmental inquiry, specifically exploring the modes of knowledge production that it mobilizes. Historic computational attempts to model, simulate and make predictions about environmental assemblages, both emerge from and reinforce a systems view on the world. The word eco-system itself stands as a reminder that the history of ecology is enmeshed with systems theory and presup-poses that species entanglements are operational or functional. More surreptitiously, a systematic view of the environment connotes it as bounded, knowable and made up of components operating in chains of cause and effect. This framing strongly invokes possibilities of manipulation and control and implicitly asks: what should an ecosystem be optimized for? This question is particularly relevant at a time of rapid climate change, mass extinction and, conveniently, an unprecedented surplus of computing.


Author(s):  
Liudmila Burtseva ◽  
Svetlana Cojocaru ◽  
Constantin Gaindric ◽  
Galina Magariu ◽  
Tatiana Verlan

In this chapter the authors introduce the digital-divide concept to the reader, bring its different definitions, and describe the short history of the problem. The basic figures and facts, which characterize the information and communication technologies’ usage in different countries and regions, are given as well. Also, basic indicators that allow the monitoring of the country’s advancement on the way to bridging the digital divide are stated. The main purpose for the authors was to show that the digital divide is not only (and not as much) a technical problem, but rather a social and political one. Hence, the approaches to this problem decision, both in the world community as a whole and in separate countries, are described.


Author(s):  
Liudmila Burtseva ◽  
Svetlana Cojocaru ◽  
Constantin Gaindric ◽  
Galina Magariu ◽  
Tatiana Verlan

In this chapter the authors introduce the digitaldivide concept to the reader, bring its different definitions, and describe the short history of the problem. The basic figures and facts, which characterize the information and communication technologies’ usage in different countries and regions, are given as well. Also, basic indicators that allow the monitoring of the country’s advancement on the way to bridging the digital divide are stated. The main purpose for the authors was to show that the digital divide is not only (and not as much) a technical problem, but rather a social and political one. Hence, the approaches to this problem decision, both in the world community as a whole and in separate countries, are described.


2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 103-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Marsh

This short history of evolutionary thought during the last few centuries describes how some of our foremost thinkers have debated – and still do – the precise mechanisms at the roots of evolutionary change. Commentators frequently contradicted themselves, as well as each other. The popularity of Christian fundamentalism waned following the World Wars. Eventually the rug was pulled from beneath it – till a more recent reaction. Amidst all this babble coming from numerous towers of Babel over centuries, we failed to see Charles Darwin as the great environmentalist: who said environmental conditions, whilst working hand in glove with natural selection, constituted the more important 'law.' A bird's eye view of 18th and 19th century evolutionary thought is considered against the climate of those times (politics, industrial revolution, trade, religious expansionism, etc). Darwinism superseded Lamarckism helped by the neo-Darwinism of Weismann, higher mathematics, population genetics – the 'Modern Synthesis' of 1935 – culminating in the discovery of the double helix by Watson, Crick et al, assuring us of the correctness of 'primacy of DNA theory'. Stimulation and challenge is currently fuelled by exciting nascent knowledge of epigenetic variations and Cairnsian 'adaptive mutations'. The work of Marcus Pembrey and Barry Keverne tracking human and animal variation back generationally describing how 'genomic imprinting' causes reversible heritable change from slight variations in the chromosomes of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and parents to be. The purpose of this thesis is to put forward a new theme proposed neither by Lamarck or Darwin. We stand on the threshold of the first paradigm change for 150 years.


1939 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Donald Grove Barnes ◽  
J. Hampden Jackson
Keyword(s):  

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