COVID-19 Vaccines in the Next Generation May Be a Pill

While these vaccines, which were developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna, are successful, they do have some drawbacks.

All of them necessitates the administration of an injection, which can render people with needle phobias highly reluctant to take the shot. Additionally, all three vaccines are associated with side effects such as fever, flu-like symptoms, and arm soreness.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been put on hold until officials look into highly rare blood clots that could be linked to it.

Researchers are working on the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines, which will be available in pill and nasal spray forms, to make the vaccination process easier and quicker.

These next-generation vaccines could make eradicating the coronavirus a lot easier.

“SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are now injectable. Several vaccine companies have begun preliminary production of a nasal vaccine spray, according to Dr. Javeed Siddiqui, TeleMed2U's co-founder and chief medical officer.

“A nasal spray vaccine could be available as soon as 2022,” he said, adding that clinical viability and vaccine efficacy in clinical trials are key factors.

Future vaccine generations are expected to include action against virus variants, according to Siddiqui.

Five companies are developing oral vaccines, according to FasterCures, a Milken Institute center that is currently monitoring the production of COVID-19 vaccines. Two of these firms have progressed to the first phase of clinical trials.

Five of the 13 firms working on a nasal spray vaccine were in the early stages of testing.

“It's thrilling", Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University and the medical director for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said, "It speaks to the ingenuity that scientists, government, and academics are working to change what we have."

“We know which parts of the virus are necessary in order to induce an immune response,” he said, referring to current vaccines.

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