[BCG Vaccination and Tuberculous Meningitis (author's transl)].

While BCG Vaccination of newborn infants has been carried out in North Germany for many years, in BadenWurttemberg and Bavaria it has only become standard practice in a few "islands" Nevertheless, tuberculosis, and especially tuberculosis of children, has regressed fairly uniformly in all the Federal States, as is shown by tuberculous meningitis, for example. In June 1975, the single modified serum used was withdrawn in the Federal Republic because of the increased complication rate. The point for discussion now is whether routine vaccination of the newborn should be started again as soon as a vaccine is available. Since the probability of a child falling ill with tuberculosis in the Republic nowadays is small and in addition the protection is not complete and of limited duration, the complications of the vaccination must be taken very seriously into consideration. But all children who are a high risk (e.g foreigners) should receive BCG vaccination in infancy even now.