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New online resource on Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccine

March 22nd, 2011

In this week's PLoS Medicine, and to coincide with World TB Day, Madhukar Pai from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and colleagues introduce the BCG World Atlas, an open access, user friendly website for TB clinicians to discern global BCG vaccination policies and practices and improve the care of their patients.

The Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine continues to be controversial, with known variations in BCG substrains and vaccine efficacy. Vaccine policies and practices vary considerably across time and countries, which created the need for the first searchable, online, open access database of global BCG vaccination policy and practices, the BCG World Atlas (http://www.bcgatlas.org/). It contains detailed information on current and past BCG policies and practices for over 180 countries. The authors say "the Atlas is designed to be a useful resource for clinicians, policymakers, and researchers and provides alike, providing information that may be helpful for better interpretation of tuberculosis (TB) diagnostics as well as design of new TB vaccines."

More information:
Zwerling A, Behr MA, Verma A, Brewer TF, Menzies D, et al. (2011) The BCG World Atlas: A Database of Global BCG Vaccination Policies and Practices. PLoS Med 8(3): e1001012. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001012

Provided by Public Library of Science

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