BCG vaccination reduces bovine tuberculosis transmission, improving prospects for elimination. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38547287/)

These scientists wanted to see how well a vaccine called BCG worked in protecting cows from a disease called bovine tuberculosis. They did an experiment where they had some cows vaccinated with BCG and some cows not vaccinated. Then, they let the cows mingle and interact for a whole year to see if the vaccinated cows were less likely to spread the disease to other cows.

The results showed that the BCG vaccine was very effective in reducing the spread of the disease from vaccinated cows to unvaccinated cows. They found that the vaccine could reduce the transmission of the disease by 74%. This means that if a vaccinated cow gets infected, it is less likely to pass on the disease to other cows.

The scientists also created a model to understand how the disease spreads among cows in the dairy industry in Ethiopia. They found that by vaccinating cows with BCG regularly, they could greatly reduce the spread of bovine tuberculosis and even work towards eliminating it completely.

Fromsa A., Willgert K., Srinivasan S., Mekonnen G., Bedada W., Gumi B., Lakew M., Tadesse B., Bayissa B., Sirak A., Girma Abdela M., Gebre S., Chibssa T., Veerasami M., Vordermeier HM., Bakker D., Berg S., Ameni G., Juleff N., de Jong MCM., Wood J., Conlan A., Kapur V. BCG vaccination reduces bovine tuberculosis transmission, improving prospects for elimination. Science. 2024 Mar 29;383(6690):eadl3962. doi: 10.1126/science.adl3962. Epub 2024 Mar 29.