A new type of vaccine could be a game-changer in the fight against COVID-19, but it has yet to receive the green light from Canada.
• Read also: COVID test on return from China: Canadian airlines disgruntled
• Read also: In 2022, the Eiffel Tower is approaching pre-COVID frequency
Faced with the arrival of the Omicron XBB.1.5 variant, scientists believe Canada should design a new vaccine for the mucous membranes, according to Global News. This new type of vaccine can be inhaled or taken by mouth. According to the scientists, this vaccine could significantly prevent the transmission of the virus.
China and India have decided to go ahead with this vaccine. However, it has not yet been approved in Canada.
An immunology professor at McMaster University, Dawn Bowdish, believes the country should accept this vaccine to hope for a return to normalcy.
“Until we have vaccines that actually stop transmission, we have to compromise between non-pharmaceutical interventions like the mask and vaccination. If we really want to go back to the life we had before the pandemic, we will have to invest in mucosal vaccines,” she said.
Current vaccines have the effect of stimulating an immune response, while a mucosal vaccine could stimulate an immune response targeting the airways, according to University of Ottawa School of Medicine professor Marc-André Langlois.
He says mucosal vaccines target the virus at its first point of entry — the mouth and nose — and can stop it even before it causes infection or transmission.
“We are really focused on the entry point and we really want to try to integrate mRNA vaccines with vaccine technology that is almost entirely dedicated to preventing the initial binding of the virus to thereby reduce the transmission of the virus,” he explained.
According to Mr. Langlois, ignorance of this new vaccine explains why it is not yet offered in Canada.
“We need this kind of innovation,” he said. Without it, we cannot win the battle.
Not all news on the site expresses the site’s views, but we broadcast this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not by a human editor.
