The next generation of Covid-19 vaccines may be developed in tablet or nasal spray form, and are therefore easier to store and transport than current ones, according to the ‘Wall Street Journal’.
According to the same publication, future vaccines developed by US government laboratories and companies including Sanofi and Gritstone also have the potential to offer longer-lasting immune responses and be more resistant against new and multiple viral variants, possibly helping to prevent future pandemics, the companies say.
The vaccines currently authorized for use by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech, as well as Moderna, must be transported and stored at low temperatures and require two doses administered weeks apart. In comparison, the new vaccines may “constitute some improvement” in the face of these limitations and accelerate vaccination efforts in rural areas, Gregory Poland, a professor and researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minesotta, in the United States, told ‘Bloomberg’.
There are currently 277 Covid-19 vaccines in development globally, of which 93 have been tested in humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Most of the vaccines in clinical trials are injected, but there are two oral formulations and seven nasal spray formulations.
Many of the next generation vaccines are in the early to intermediate stages of human testing, which means they may not be available until late 2021 or early 2022. There is no guarantee that the vaccines will succeed in testing, and some of the companies developing them, such as Altimmune and Gritstone, have never released a vaccine on the market.
However, if the new vaccines are confirmed to offer protection and safety against Covid-19, they could be a new global booster weapon. Infectious disease experts have already warned that new booster vaccines may need to be developed periodically in order to extend the duration of protection against the new coronavirus by building defenses against new variants.
“It’s extremely important in the future to have vaccines that are easier to handle and have better cold chain characteristics,” said John Mascola, director of the vaccine research center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, quoted by ‘Bloomberg’.
