OBJECTIVE In vitro interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) assays have emerged as novel alternatives to the tuberculin skin test (TST) for the diagnosis of latent tuberculosis (TB) infection. These assays have been evaluated in low incidence countries, mainly in adults, and have been shown to be more specific than TST. Because few studies have been done in high incidence countries, and because paediatric ...

test, chest X-ray, ESR, biopsy of the lesion whenever available, isolation of AFB if possible, and examination of the spinal, pleural or ascitic fluid depending upon the type of tuberculosis. Tuberculin test was done with 1 TU of purified protein derivative and was considered positive, when after 72 hours, an induration of more than 10 x 10 mm was seen. Presence of BCG scar was taken as confirm...

One hundred and fifteen scar positive, BCG vaccinated children between the ages of 2-12 years were tuberculin tested. Monotest purified tuberculin test kit from Institute Merieux France was used. This is a nine point punch and results were read in 2-4 days. One hundred and one reported for reading and 52 were tuberculin positive. 50% positivity is rather low following vaccination. The reasons c...

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 ...

BACKGROUND Vaccines may have non-specific effects. An observational study from Guinea-Bissau suggested that oral polio vaccine at birth (OPV0) provided with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine was associated with down-regulation of the immune response to BCG vaccine 6 weeks later. Based on the previous finding, we wanted to test our a priori hypothesis that OPV would dampen the immune respon...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the safety of the intradermal Copenhagen BCG vaccine in neonates at different levels of delivery and neonatal units of the Durban Functional Region and surrounding regions. METHODS A prospective study was carried out over a two-year period between July 1997 and June 1999. All neonates who had been vaccinated with the intradermal vaccine were evaluated at immunization cli...

BACKGROUND The increased susceptibility to latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) of HIV-1-infected persons represents a challenge in TB epidemic control. However few studies have evaluated LTBI predictors in a generalized HIV/TB epidemic setting. METHODS The study recruited 335 HIV-infected participants from Khayelitsha, Cape Town between February 2008 and November 2010. Tuberculin skin tests ...

Nine of 355 cases of symtopmatic HIV-infected children who admitted to Chiang Mai University Hospital from January 1989 to December 1994 had complication due to BCG vaccination. The median age was 15 months with its range from 8 to 22 monts. Four cases presented with ulceration of the previously-healed BCG scar with ipsilateral enlarged and inflamed axillary nodes. Four cases had ipsilateral en...

Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine exerts nonspecific immunostimulatory effects and may therefore represent a novel therapeutic option to treat sepsis-induced immunoparalysis. We investigated whether BCG vaccination modulates the systemic innate immune response in humans in vivo during experimental endotoxemia. We used inactivated gamma-irradiated BCG vaccine because of the potential risk of...