Abstract
At the Leprosy Clinic of the US Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco, 166 cases of leprosy were seen during the past 7 years. Of 198 family contacts of patients with lepromatous disease examined at the clinic, 16 developed leprosy (an attack rate of 8.08%). Until recently, the policy was to examine every known contact at the time the diagnosis in the index case was established and periodically thereafter; however, this method resulted in a fairly large number of new leprosy cases. A program of prophylactic BCG [Bacille Calmette-Guerin] vaccinations therefore was instituted at the Leprosy Clinic. The results provide evidence that BCG vaccination confers a high degree of protection.

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