EDITORIAL BCG VACCINATION POLICY IN EUROPE | Bacille Calmette–Gue´rin vaccination: the current situation in Europe Masoud Dara1,5, Colleen D. Acosta1,5, Valiantsin Rusovich2, Jean Pierre Zellweger3, Rosella Centis4 and Giovanni Battista Migliori4 on behalf of the WHO EURO Childhood Task Force members6 Affiliations: 1World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark. 2World Health Organization Country Office, Minsk, Belarus. 3Swiss Lung Association, Vaud section (LPVD), Lausanne, Switzerland. 4World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, Fondazione S. Maugeri, Care and Research Institute, Tradate, Italy. 5These authors contributed equally. 6For a list of the WHO EURO Childhood Task Force members and their affiliations, please see the acknowledgements section. Correspondence: G.B. Migliori, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, Fondazione S. Maugeri, Care and Research Institute, Via Roncaccio 16, 21049, Tradate, Italy. E-mail:
[email protected] @ERSpublications A WHO EURO Task Force provides the latest evidence and a coherent policy to use BCG vaccination in Europe http://ow.ly/pusIU Tuberculosis is a major public health priority. This is not only because of its daunting morbidity and mortality rates, both globally and in Europe (summarised in figs 1 and 2)[1, 3–5], but also because of the natural history of the disease. Active (contagious) tuberculosis disease occurs after a period of latency (or subclinical infection), and different risk factors [6–13], in combination with latent infection, introduce challenges to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Vaccination against tuberculosis, if effective, would be therefore critical to control and elimination strategies [14–16].