WHY THE PROPOSAL TO USE POLIO VACCINE

Tests are already under way to see if the TB vaccine can slow the novel coronavirus, while other researchers writing in a scientific journal yesterday propose using the polio vaccine, which once was melted on children’s tongues.

The old vaccines are oddities among the cutting-edge and targeted technologies being developed to combat the novel coronavirus. New vaccines aim to teach the body’s immune system to recognise and destroy the coronavirus, but scientists are only now beginning to test them in people. Vaccines developed against TB and polio have already been used in millions of people and could offer a low-risk way to rev up the body’s first line of defence — the innate immune system — against a broad array of pathogens, including the coronavirus.

“This is the only vaccine in the world that can be given to combat Covid-19 right now,” said Jeffrey D. Cirillo, a professor of microbial pathogenesis and immunology at Texas A & M Health Science Centre, who is leading a trial of the tuberculosis vaccine, called bacillus Calmette-Gurin and known by the shorthand BCG.

According to a report on CNN, there is plenty of evidence that existing inoculations such as polio vaccines protect children against a wide range of infections and it’s worth trying them out against the virus, a team of experts wrote in Science magazine on Thursday.

An oral polio vaccine is safe, cheap, easy to give and widely available, with over 1 billion doses produced and used annually in more than 140 countries, according to the team.

This is the only vaccine in the world that can be given to combat Covid-19 right now.”

Jeffrey D. Chirillo | Professor