NEW DELHI, Oct 30: A study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has come to the conclusion that BCG vaccination for tuberculosis is also effective in preventing coronavirus, among the elderly people.

However, it should not be construed that BCG is not effective among other people. Simply, their study was only on the elderly and why was it so limited is not known. Misleading.

Here is a sample of a similar thinking that doesn't sync with commonsense. That a study, obviously another fat-budgeted project, said that mouth wash and nasal rinses do not give protection against coronavirus because there is no evidence and there is no evidence because no research has been undertaken. Conveying by default that mouth wash and nasal rinses will not help because there was no research! This was reproduced by a leading publication in a prominent slot. News today has become a marketed item to promote various interests. What was sought to be conveyed here was that there has not been any research so far conducted to find out whether mouth wash and nasal rinses give protection against coronavirus! Superfluous and misleading!

It's about ten months that coronavirus is playing havoc around the world, killing thousands a day, without any let-up. And BCG is with us for about 100 years. The village folks were guessing about a connection way back in February.

About BCG, does it take billions in so-called budget allocation and huge infrastructure to find out after some decades if among the thousands of people dying of coronavirus every day who had taken the BCG vaccination and who had not? At least randomly. We lack in basic coordinating mechanisms that cost nothing! Because it costs nothing!

In fact, when it was found that the virus transmisssion was quite slow in India in the beginning despite its proximity to the place of origin of the virus, Wuhan in China, the illiterate Indian villagers began discussing a BCG connection soon after the essential features of the pathogen were discovered and made known to the public: That it is a respiratory disease like tuberculosis and so it can spread through cough and exhalation. A scientist from one of our Harvard-like institutions, coming across this hearsay, applied for substantial funds to take up the study, also claiming he is the first to propound the hypothesis. His demand for money was promptly turned down for good. But he got it from some innocent institution in the West!

Recently it was reported in the press that NCP boss Sharad Pawar, 79, went all the way to the Serum Institute of India in Pune to find out about BCG and also get a shot! “It increases immunity and I got it administered,” the NCP chief told reporters there. But he could get it done at home!

The ICMR research concluded, “BCG vaccination was associated with enhanced innate and adaptive memory cell subsets, as well as total antibody levels in elderly individuals, suggesting its potential utility in SARS-Cov-2 infection by enhancing heterologous immunity.”

The 100-year old BCG vaccine is administered to babies as a part of national health programmes for about 70 years or more in India.