What if the Covid vaccine becomes a pill?

It would certainly be simpler to administer and easier to distribute. Here is the pill vaccine developed by two companies, which could begin clinical trials this year

(Photo: Pixabay) No syringes and injections. For many it would already be excellent news if the Covid vaccine were a simple pill to swallow. A vaccine administered orally, even from the comfort of home, which could enter the early stages of clinical trials this year. This was recently announced by Oramed, an Israeli-American pharmaceutical company, and India's Premas Biotech, according to which their oral vaccine candidate was effective, after a single dose, in producing antibodies against coronavirus in a preclinical study and could begin. human testing by June. However, much caution is still needed: there is still no guarantee that it will work on us, and even if the results are promising, it may take a year or more before it is authorized for use. To realize, clinical trials of the vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer began in March and May of 2020 respectively.

Vaccinations in pill form are now an option under study and evaluation for so-called second generation vaccines, designed to be easier to administer and simpler to distribute. An oral vaccine, in fact, could "potentially allow people to take it independently from home," Nadav Kidron, CEO of Oramed, told the Jerusalem Post. The vaccine, the expert continues, could be shipped in a normal refrigerator and stored at room temperature, "making it easier to obtain anywhere in the world". Not only that: according to the company, the vaccine candidate could offer better protection against coronavirus variants, since it is capable of targeting three structural proteins of the virus and not just the spike, as other vaccines do.

However, there are those who call for caution for an anti-Covid vaccine in pill. In an e-mail sent to Business Insider, Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, stated that "we will need studies properly conducted to prove the effectiveness of oral vaccines". Data on the vaccine, however, have not been published to date. "The results of the animal studies appear to be encouraging," Hunter continued. “But I wouldn't assume that results on animal models always translate into promising results for humans as well. We need clinical trials to be sure ”.

In addition to being easier and faster to administer, there are other advantages of a pill vaccine over those that are given by injection. "Although they are effective in preventing serious illness, the problem with systemic vaccines is that they are often not very good at preventing infections," continues the expert. The idea behind it, in fact, is that since coronavirus infection initially occurs in the nose and throat, vaccines that target these areas could help stop the disease before it can develop into more severe forms. br>
In addition to the pill, finally, there are other new generation vaccines that are currently being studied, such as those administered with a nasal spray, or even through a patch. For example, the University of Oxford, which together with AstraZeneca developed the already authorized Covid vaccine, is considering developing nasal tablets or sprays for an oral vaccine, while another company, ImmunityBio, is conducting Phase 1 clinical trials of an oral version of its vaccine. However, the company specifies, this could be used more as a booster dose for the intramuscular vaccine, rather than a single vaccination.


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