Stop TB Partnership

BCG Atlas provides detailed information on vaccination in more than 180 countries

24 March 2011 - Montreal, Canada - In the days leading up to World TB Day 2011, a team of researchers from McGill University, Canada, launched the BCG World Atlas: a first-of-its-kind, easy-to-use, searchable website that provides free detailed information on current and past TB vaccination policies and practices for more than 180 countries.

The Atlas is for clinicians, policymakers, and researchers and provides information that may be helpful for better interpretation of tuberculosis (TB) diagnostics as well as design of new TB vaccines.

The BCG vaccine was introduced in 1921 and continues to be the only vaccine used to prevent TB. Despite nearly a century of use, the vaccine remains controversial, with known variations in efficacy, strains, policies and practices across the world.

Clinicians need to be aware of the various BCG policies in different parts of the world, as well as changes to those policies over time, especially when dealing with foreign-born adults who were vaccinated as children and who are unlikely to have retained their childhood vaccination records.