Coronavirus pill: Researchers develop COVID-19 vaccine pill, protects against disease and transmission

An investigational COVID vaccine designed to be taken orally has been found not only to protect the host, but also to decrease the airborne transmission of the virus to the unvaccinated people. The pill-based COVID vaccine has shown promise in preliminary trials - both helping to protect against severe infections and reduce transmission in hamsters. Dr Langel and colleagues experimented with a vaccine candidate that uses an adenovirus as a vector to express the spike protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses to gain access to cells. Adenoviruses are a broad family of some 50 viruses known to cause a wide variety of illnesses such as the common cold, conjunctivitis, gastroenteritis, bladder infection, life-threatening multi-organ diseases in the clinically vulnerable. The team developed both intranasal and oral formulations of their vaccine candidate and tested it on hamsters. An advantage of the latter is that it is easy to administer.