Harvard global health researcher and Chief Abundance Partner, Dr. Megan Murray, hypothesizes that the most widely used vaccine in the world (BCG, originally developed for tuberculosis), might be useful in protecting people against COVID-19. Her insight is based on clinical studies that show BCG works against a host of unrelated infections, including many respiratory diseases.
As long-time collaborators — fighting epidemic disease including Cholera and Ebola — Dr. Murray immediately approached Abundance Foundation with a proposal for a compelling stage 3 research trial. Since that moment, we’ve worked assiduously to engage research partners and donors in this high quality, rigorous study.
As part of this effort, Abundance Foundation Founder and President, Dr. Stephen Kahn, interviewed Dr. Murray about her COVID-19 research, studying the efficacy of the BCG vaccine in a randomized, blinded clinical trial that spans three countries. As a widely available and inexpensive vaccine, BCG has the potential to offer an effective and equitable solution to this devastating pandemic.
We are pleased to make available a short video series, taking a peek inside some of the minds at the forefront of addressing this global pandemic.
We are doing everything we can to make sure this research happens and is a success, and we are inviting you to join us. You help advance Dr. Murray’s research and support of front line health care workers in some of the most vulnerable communities battling COVID-19. Can we count on you to share this page and the videos with your network? If it is within your capacity, you can also donate to the Abundance COVID-19 Response Fund here. Every contribution makes a difference, and your support of our work is, as always, crucial to its success. Thank you for your support, and for taking the time to learn about Dr. Murray’s work through the videos below.
To learn more about how to support this work through Harvard Medical School, please contact Emily Bahnsen at Emily_Bahnsen@hms.harvard.edu.
Full interview with Dr. Kahn and Dr. Murray (13 min):
Short video (3.5 min):
An easy-to-share trailer (2 min):
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Take a peek inside one of the minds at the forefront of addressing the #Coronavirus pandemic, with a video series featuring Harvard epidemiologist @megan_b_murray on her research abt #BCG vaccine & #COVID-19. Watch now & learn abt her groundbreaking work: abundance.org/covid
About Dr. Megan Murray, MD, MPH, ScD
Ronda Stryker & William Johnston Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School
Director of Harvard’s Global Health Research Core
Director of Research at Partners In Health
Director of Research Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Division of Global Health Equity
Dr. Megan Murray is an epidemiologist and an infectious disease physician, with over 25 years of experience in management of TB programs and TB epidemiology and is the director of Harvard Medical School’s Global Health Research Core. Dr. Murray is a Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Director of Research at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Global Health Equity and its sister organization, Partners In Health. She is also an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health where she leads a research team which conducts multidisciplinary research on MDR and XDR TB involving conventional and molecular epidemiology, cost-effectiveness and mathematical modeling, outcomes and operations research, and genomic epidemiology. She has conducted field studies in South Africa, Russia, Peru, the US, and Rwanda and has previously worked in Kenya, Niger and Pakistan. Dr. Murray serves as an editor for PLoS Medicine and for the European Journal of Epidemiology. She is a member of WHO’s TB-STAG, the Stop TB MDR Working Group, and WHO Global XDR-TB Task Force. She has also served on numerous other committees including the Harvard University Human Subjects Committee, the University’s Pandemic Flu Advisory Committee, the Institute of Medicine committee on Gulf War and Infectious Diseases and NIH study sections.
Dr. Murray was instrumental in the development of a rapid diagnostic tool for Ebola, and her work on Cholera vaccination dramatically changed the global paradigm for use of the vaccine.