Some aspects of BCG vaccination programs in Canada

• Main Author: Frappier, Armand
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1960
• Subjects: BCG vaccine; article; BCG vaccination; Canada; Indian; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://espace.inrs.ca/id/eprint/8402/

The continuing high annual rate of new cases of tuberculosis and of readmissions, the large number of active cases not hospitalized in sanatorium, the high incidence of relpases or reactivation, the rate of tuberculous infection which is still high in some regions of our country, the estimates of the prevalence of tuberculosis in North America, all motivate the more or less limited or reslective use of BCG in the different provinces of Canada. In Quebec and Newfoundland and in the Indian Health Services, vaccination is generalized and systematic. In other provinces, it is selective or limited to professional groups (students, nurses) and individuals in contact. It is hard to understand that, in some regions, vaccination is not used systematically in subjects found negative to tuberculin and exposed to known contacts. The federal and provincial governments are sponsoring BCG vaccination which is the responsibility of their public health services or, in some provinces, of the local tuberculosis association. Features of BCG vaccination programs in Canada are: almost general use of the scarification method for vaccination and of the BCG Skin Test by scarification for the allergy test, prior to vaccination; temporary isolation alter vaccination of newborn infants from tuberculous families (in the Province of Quebec); a central BCG Registry (for the provinces of quebec and Newfoundland and the Indian Health Services of the federal government), which is essential for the evaluation of the effect, either immediate or remote, of vaccination on the death rate from tuberculosis; the use of mobile vaccination clicnics (in Quebec and Newfoundland); the high proportion (40%) of vaccination of newborn infants in Quebec. It is the opinion of the author that the success and beneficial effects of a program of BCG vaccination (whether on a limited, slective or general basis) depend on its systematic application and its integration by some way or another into the health services. From 1926, over 1,500,000 individuals were given BCG ...