The age-old advice to regularly get children and adults dewormed has now got some solid scientific backing. An Indian research team have found that the presence of worms in the stomach makes tuberculosis vaccinations relatively ineffective. Almost every child born in the country receives a BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) vaccine dose within a few days of birth. The vaccine has, however, been found to be ineffective in certain cases and some people, though vaccinated, develop tuberculosis. BCG is covered under universal immunisation programme in India, and children get the initial and booster doses free of cost. Yet, TB has emerged as a major health problem in India and even in developed na-tions like the UK.
Scientists from the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, said infections with parasitic worms interfere with the BCG vaccine and render it less effective. The research report, highlighting reasons for the failure of the BCG vaccine was published in the latest issue of scientific journal Trends in Molecular Medicine.
IMT senior scientist Dr Javed Agrewala said BCG does not work well in TB endemic regions because exposure to prevalent myco-bacterial strains trigger the production of antibodies that counteract the vaccine. “Also, infections with parasitic worms called hel-minths interfere with protective immune responses induced by BCG,” he said. India has a large number of TB cases despite vaccination. It also has thousands of latent TB cases, where the TB bacteria live in the body without causing the disease. A press release said there is an immediate need to develop new vaccines to prevent the spread of tub-erculosis, as the existing vaccine BCG has lost its efficacy to an extent.