Exeter covid vaccine volunteers needed

1,000 healthcare and care home staff sought

A global trial designed to see if a widely-used jab against TB called BCG could help protect against covid-19 is recruiting healthcare staff and care home workers. The University of Exeter is leading the UK arm of the trial, called the ‘BCG vaccination to reduce the impact of covid-19 in healthcare workers’ (Brace) trial.

The Brace trial is coordinated by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia. The trial has received more than $10 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to allow its global expansion. The Peter Sowerby Foundation has contributed funding to support the Exeter trial site.

The UK joins study centres in Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Brazil in the largest trial of its kind, recruiting more than 10,000 healthcare staff. Participants will be given either the BCG vaccine (currently given to more than 100 million babies worldwide each year to protect against tuberculosis or a placebo. In the UK, routine BCG vaccination was stopped in 2005 because of low rates of TB in the general population.

Professor John Campbell, of the University of Exeter Medical School, is the UK lead on the Brace study. He said: “Covid-19 has killed more than a million people globally, with well over 33 million people acquiring the disease, sometimes in its severest forms. BCG has been shown to boost immunity in a generalised way, which may offer some protection against covid-19. If it does, we could save lives by administering or topping up this readily available and cost-effective vaccination.”

Previous studies suggest that the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine could reduce susceptibility to a range of infections caused by viruses including those similar to the novel coronavirus causing covid-19. The BCG vaccine boosts immunity by ‘training’ the immune system to respond to other subsequent infections with greater intensity.

Researchers hope this improved ‘innate immunity’ will buy crucial time to develop an effective and safe vaccine against covid-19.The Brace trial is initially recruiting care and healthcare workers in the south west, who can attend clinics in Exeter. The trial is targeting these professionals because they work in fields with high exposure to covid-19. 

Professor Campbell added: “People on the covid-19 front line, including healthcare workers and care home workers, are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus infection. Up until now, care home workers have been overlooked by most research. The Brace trial provides us with a great opportunity to offer potential help to this important group of individuals who are providing healthcare to some of our most vulnerable citizens in important community settings."

tTe trial is initially seeking to recruit 1,000 participants who work in care homes and other community healthcare settings in and around Exeter. Participants will be asked to complete a daily symptom diary via an app, be tested for covid-19 whenever they have symptoms, complete regular questionnaires and provide blood samples. These samples will allow scientists to understand how blood cells respond differently to exposure to covid-19 and other viruses, with and without the BCG vaccine.

To find out more or to take part, visit https://www.exeter.ac.uk/brace