COVID-19 Disease and Interferon-γ: Has it aProtective Impact on Mortality?

Abstract

The complex coincidence of several immunopathological, socio-cultural, and health infrastructure factors may affect theCOVID-19 related mortality among different populations. The impact of the age on disease progression has been confirmedin several studies. Recently limited ecological and clinical studies have sparked controversy among researchers about theprotective impact of the non-specific effect of routinely used Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), Hepatitis A virus (HAV), andinfluenza (Flu) vaccines or their natural infections against COVID-19. In the present study, variables, including BCG vaccina tion coverage, HAV prevalence, and population age distributions, from 59 countries were analyzed to examine their potentialassociation with COVID-19 infection and related mortality rate. Concerning COVID-19 cases/million population (1MP) andmortality, there are significant differences between countries with and without BCG vaccination programs (p-value