| Abstract | One of the first lines of defense against tuberculosis is the bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. Although BCG is an old vaccine, studies of its protective efficacy have had widely divergent results. In addition, the vaccine can interfere with the diagnosis of latent TB infection. Due to these qualities, the international community has adopted varying policies on the vaccine's use. We introduce a dynamical system model for tuberculosis dynamics at the population level in order to examine the conditions which justify discontinuing BCG vaccination. Whenever possible, model parameters are defined in terms of control indicators estimated by the World Health Organization. The model is fit to TB data for eight countries with varying TB burdens and analyzed via numerical experiments, sensitivity analysis and dynamical systems theory. |
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