BCG Vaccination of Student Nurses: A Ten Year Experience

¹ The Brooklyn Hospital.

1. Seventy per cent of our student nurses were tuberculin negative on admission to nurses training.

2. One BCG vaccination "sensitized" 73 per cent of the tuberculin negative student nurses.

3. Thirty per cent of the sensitized students were found to have reverted to tuberculin negative status after two years.

4. With a program of BCG administration frequent chest x-ray films are needed in order to find early tuberculous lesions. Excessive radiation may result especially if photoroentgenograms are used for this purpose.

5. We feel that under present conditions, student nurses who are in good health, with good living conditions can be safely managed through a training period of general nursing and tuberculosis nursing with a minimum of danger. Rather than vaccination, measures utilizing early case finding techniques such as frequent skin testing plus regular chest x-ray films when indicated, are needed. Detection and eradication of previously unsuspected sources of infection, early and adequate treatment of tuberculosis when discovered, and isolation of individuals in the communicable phase of their disease are still our most important means for the prevention of tuberculosis.