PubMed · 1589784
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P J Brennan. 1992-05-22. Tuberculosis rebounding.. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.256.5060.1113-b
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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 clinics six weeks after immunization, or earlier if adverse effects occurred. FINDINGS: In total, 9763 neonates were examined: in 95.4% the vaccination scar had healed and 1.5% had no visible scar. Adverse events occurred in 3.1%. The proportion of neonates with no visible vaccination scars decreased over the study period, as did the number with adverse events. The lowest rate of adverse events and the highest rates of healed vaccination scars were seen in the tertiary hospital and regional and district hospitals that were in close proximity to the academic centre involved in this study. CONCLUSIONS: In the study sites, the transition from the percutaneous to intradermal route of administration of BCG vaccine was successful and took place without incurring unacceptably high rates of adverse events. To minimize adverse events, however, it is essential to continue training health personnel involved in implementing intradermal BCG vaccination programmes.
Konrad Elias Birkhaug (1892-1980) was born in Bergen to Elisa Marie Skorge and Karl Anders Birkhaug, a policeman, as the sixth of their ten children. After a period as a laboratory assistant at Bergen Municipal Hospital, he emigrated to USA in 1911. He graduated from the medical school of Johns Hopkins University in 1924. After residency in bacteriology, he became professor at Rochester University in 1927 and head of its laboratory of bacteriology. From 1932 to 1935 he worked as a senior scientist at the Institute Pasteur in Paris and from 1935 to 1945 as a fellow of the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen. From 1937 he also headed the National Laboratory for production of BCG vaccine. After active involvement in the resistance movement against the Nazis during the Second World War, he returned to the USA in 1946 as head of the BCG laboratory of the State of New York in Albany. He retired in 1953 and settled in Bergen, where he died in 1980. Birkhaug is one of the pioneers in the research on immunity reactions to tuberculosis infection and BCG vaccination. He is also known for producing the first antiserum against erysipelas, which was used from 1927 until sulphonamides were discovered. In addition to his international scientific publications, he wrote two books in Norwegian, his autobiography and a book about the German eradication of a small fishermen's village in Western Norway during the Second World War.
Current methods for determining the identity of substrains of Mycobacterium bovis BCG (BCG) vaccine are labour intensive, or provide only limited substrain differentiation. In this paper we describe a multiplex PCR that distinguishes between M. tuberculosis (TB) and M. bovis and the non-pathogenic BCG strain, and also subdivides the BCG vaccine substrains investigated into seven distinct fingerprints based on six target regions in the DNA. This test is specific, rapid, reproducible and portable and is proposed as a novel test for BCG vaccine control. It offers substantial advantages over the methods currently in use. Using this test we have characterised a number of commercial BCG vaccines.