As the world races to produce an effective Covid-19 vaccine, some experts are turning their attention to a polio vaccine as a way to provide temporary protection against coronavirus.
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 new coronavirus, a team of experts wrote in Science magazine 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.
The vaccine has nearly eradicated polio worldwide.
The oral polio vaccine uses a weakened version of the polio virus. The live attenuated vaccines produce a strong and long-lasting immune response, vaccine experts said.
They're slower to manufacture than modern vaccines that just use a piece of genetic material from a virus, and the US and European companies working on coronavirus vaccines are focusing on quicker ways.
It would make sense to at least test it to see if it helps against coronavirus, said Konstantin Chumakov of the FDA and Dr. Robert Gallo of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland, and colleagues.
"Oral poliovirus vaccine in particular, could provide temporary protection against coronavirus disease," they wrote.
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