Acceptability of BCG vaccination
Mande, R.
Journal of Biological Standardization 5(2): 155-158
1977
ISSN/ISBN: 0092-1157 PMID: 881429 DOI: 10.1016/0092-1157(77)90011-7Document Number: 499373
Acceptability of Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine has tended to reflect many factors unrelated to the real effects of the vaccine itself. In particular, the risk of tuberculosis in a given country at a given time has always been a more significant factor than the incidence of complications associated with the vaccine. A possible protective effect of BCG on the occurrence of acute leukemia has also led to the intensification of BCG vaccination among young children entirely on the initiative of physicians. The public is more concerned with anomalous local lesions at the site of intradermal vaccination than by real complications such as fatal dissemination, osteitis, and lupus. As a result, many physicians feel pressured by their patients to replace the intradermal route of administration with scarification and to replace strong strains with weaker strains of vaccine. It is of major importance, then, that public health authorities are correctly informed, with a clear understanding of the balance between the use of an active strain with some side effects but providing good immunity and the use of a weaker strain with fewer side-effects but with a lower level of protection. When tuberculosis is still an important public health problem in a country, relatively innocuous side-effects should be accepted. On the other hand, if tuberculosis is no longer a significant threat, efforts should be made to avoid any annoying consequences of BCG vaccination, no matter how minimal they may be.