Management of Adverse Reactions to Bacille Calmette-Guérin Vaccine

Published reports appear to underestimate the true rate of adverse reactions to bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. At a recent national conference on tuberculosis control among aboriginal populations, lack of awareness of what constitutes an adverse reaction was considered a possible contributing factor to underreporting. The following review defines a normal BCG response and discusses the management of complications when they occur.