Five medical centres in the country are taking part in the project, with plans to test a group of 1,000 people, most of them healthcare professionals.
Poland’s state-run Medical Research Agency (ABM) has allocated PLN 5 million (EUR 1.1 million, USD 1.2 million) to support the project, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
It cited Dr. Hanna Czajka, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Rzeszów, southeastern Poland, as saying that the study aimed to help determine whether a tuberculosis vaccine produced and used in Poland for years could elicit an immune response in patients to help them combat viral infections, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Various international researchers have suggested there might be a relationship between the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths in countries that vaccinate against tuberculosis and those that do not, the IAR news agency reported.
Similar studies on the impact of TB vaccination on the incidence and course of SARS-CoV-2 infection are under way in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia, according to the news agency.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR