The participants will be given at random a dose of Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine – developed a hundred years ago to combat tuberculosis – to confirm reports suggesting the vaccine might provide protection against the worst effects of the novel strain of coronavirus , as the entire world is desperate for treatment method against the unprecedented pandemic.
Vietnam's Ministry of Health has commissioned the National Lung Hospital and the National Institute Of Hygiene And Epidemiology to carry out the research into the alleged correlation, within the context of Vietnam, where the vaccine is universally available and mandatory. He cited the acute case of the 43-year-old British pilot currently undergoing treatment in Vietnam for Covid-19, saying that while the patient was a perfectly healthy male, his condition had deteriorated dangerously and unpredictably due to his own body's defence mechanism's overreaction to the coronavirus.
800 Vietnamese health workers together with 400 from Cambodia and 1,000 from France will be participating in this plan if it goes through. Nguyễn Ngô Quang, Vice Director of the Administration of Science, Technology and Training under the Ministry of Health, stressed that all medical studies involving humans must be reviewed and approved by the ministry's ethics committee.
Six countries in the world are reportedly conducting the trial, including Australia and the Netherlands.