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Can old vaccines from science’s medicine cabinet ward off coronavirus?

Researchers think tuberculosis and polio vaccines could rev up the body’s innate immune system against a new pathogen

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June 11, 2020 at 2:28 p.m. EDT
A Congolese child is given a polio vaccination at a relief camp in Rwanda. Prominent researchers hope to test the oral polio vaccine against the coronavirus. (Karel Prinsloo/AP)

Two tried-and-true vaccines — a century-old inoculation against tuberculosis and a decades-old polio vaccine once given as a sugar cube — are being evaluated to see if they can offer limited protection against the coronavirus.

Tests are already underway to see if the TB vaccine can slow the novel coronavirus, while other researchers writing in a scientific journal Thursday propose using the polio vaccine, which once was melted on children’s tongues.