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Comment by BWStearns | Hacker News Reader

Oh hey, I had TB. It sucked. I had to be proper quarantined for 3 months, felt like shit for a whole year and a half, and nearly died because I didn't realize I had any symptoms. I thought I was just tired and depressed all the time because I hated my job, and then one day I collapsed from what I thought was a heart attack.

I was/am otherwise healthy and must have just drawn the short straw (or it was a very long dwelling infection from a trip abroad years earlier). I really wish we vaccinated for it like Europe. I'd have taken the little scar on my arm for reducing the already small chance of dealing with that shit.

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BCG doesn't really do much beyond childhood, and even then, just reduces the impact of the disease if you do get it.

I'm assuming you're mistaken, given it provided herd immunity. It definitely reduces your chances of getting it. Reducing the impact also means you spread it less.

There is no herd immunity to TB. USA eliminated most of it back in the mid 20th century with a single antibiotic before the resistant strands started spreading, which now requires a 4 drug cocktail for standard non-resistant strands now. We've just done a really good job of controlling it since then, it's not the fastest spreading disease out there. That said, the current volume of border crossings is probably going to cause an uptick here.

In countries with widespread BCG vaccination, substantial percentages of population are latently infected, and a smaller percentage of those will still become actively infected one day.

(Citing my sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCG_vaccine

https://thispodcastwillkillyou.com/2018/02/10/episode-9-tube...)

I would have accepted reduced impact.

Were you able to completely recover? Any symptoms from it still? In the case I was helping care for, the infection ended up leaving a lot of unusual autoimmune conditions in its wake.

Fully recovered. Felt like shit for about a year after from losing so much weight, and being stuck in a room alone for 3 months probably didn’t help much.

Wouldn’t be surprised if it broke something that shows up later but so far everything is fine 8 years on.

Only chronic symptom so far is I got into functional programming while quarantined and it stuck, so maybe it’s a sign of mental illness.

Hah! Good man. Appreciate the sense of humor.

As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I've got a nonzero chance of getting it one day. I'm not afraid, just hoping I'd be able to contribute to eradicating it from the world in some way.

There's some work in looking at alternative ways of administering the BCG vaccine (iv injection, inhalation). The IV numbers are pretty promising -- if the monkey numbers hold. I hope that someone, somewhere pushes it into human trials soon.

There's also the nebulous but very nice-sounding "non-specific effect" with it. Who knows.

Interesting, it was my understanding that you don’t actually gain immunity to TB after an infection (as the treatment itself eliminates the bacteria; not your body, mycobacteria stay alive within microphages) so curious what about alternative injection approaches works

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