La reacción de mitsuda en los vacunados con BCG / Mitsuda`s reaction and BCG vaccination

ABSTRACT

Thirty one children of leper parents in the Santa Teresita Preventorium of Asunción, Paraguay, all of them free from leprosy, were vaccinated with BCG after X-ray chest examinations and tuberculin tests which proved positive in 77 per cent. Rosenthal's multipuncture method was used. Among 11, in whom the results of the Mitsuda test were unknown, 82 per cent proved Mitsuda-positive after the vaccination. In 80 per cent of the other 20 the Mitsuda test changed from negative to positive after the vaccination. The following conclusions are given An antigenic relation between tuberculosis and leprosy does not appear likely. A tuberculous infection cannot be accepted as the cause of a positive Mitsuda reaction. BCG vaccination may change a Mitsuda reaction from negative to postive in 80 per cent of both tuberculin-anergic and allergic cases. This experience suggests the possibility of preventing leprosy by BCG, especially in persons living in an endemic environment, if leprologists accept that a positive Mitsuda reaction implies a relative immunity(AU)