“As you know all the vaccines have been given at the moment as intramuscular injections,” Gilbert said on Wednesday local-time.
“That is not necessarily the best way to provide protection against a respiratory virus infection, where we want the immune system to be active in the upper respiratory tract and then in the lower respiratory tract, which is where the virus is causing the infection.
“And we have flu vaccines that are given by nasal spray. This could be a very good approach in the future to use vaccines against coronaviruses.
“It’s also possible to consider oral vaccination where you take a tablet that will give you the immunisation, and that would have a lot of benefits for vaccine rollout if you didn’t have to use the needles and syringes for people.”
Coronavirus vaccine: Oxford starts work on potential COVID-19 pill treatment
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Coronavirus vaccine: Oxford starts work on potential COVID-19 pill treatment
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(Photo by John Cairns / University of Oxford / AFP / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
Aside from Go and Angara among the principal-authors, 15 more senators have co-authored Senate Bill (SB) 2057 or the COVID-19 Vaccination Program Bill.
Go, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, has co-sponsored SB 2057 designed to hasten the procurement of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines.
The measure allows local government units (LGUs) to procure vaccines and make advance payments, and to include an indemnification fund requested by vaccine manufacturers to cover the possible expenses and claims arising from adverse effects of the vaccines.
According Angara, the principal sponsor of the measure to hasten the process of procurement and administration of the COVID-19 vaccines, the measure gives authority to the Department of Health (DOH) and the National Task Force Against COVID-19 to “undertake negotiated procurement of COVID-19 vaccines and the ancillary supplies and services