SA to host first oral Covid vaccine trial

As Africa’s first oral Covid vaccine clinical trial prepares for take off this month in South Africa, Oramed Pharmaceuticals disclosed it will not be using Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines in its tablets.

According to Oramed chief executive Nadav Kidron, its vaccine is a particularly strong candidate against the evolving Covid virus due to its unique targeting of three proteins rather than one.

“With the delta and other variants proving a challenge to health administrators globally, our technology could prove even more important in the effort to combat Covid,” Kidron said.

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The US-listed company announced on Friday it had won approval to run clinical trials this month, after permission was granted by the SA Health Regulatory Products Authority (Sahpra), with the results expected in the first quarter of next year.

“The clinical trial has been authorised,” Sahpra’s Yuven Gounden said.

However, he was not sure when the trial would start as there were other logistics required, including ethics approval. SA is the first country in the world chosen for a human clinical trial of the oral vaccine.

Epidemiologist Dr Jo Barnes said a number of people who were vaccine-hesitant were reluctant to present themselves for vaccination because of a fear of needles and injections.

An oral vaccine would help with that.

“An oral vaccine would be considerably easier to roll-out. No syringes to buy and safely dispose of, no training of persons to do the injections and possibly not such serious requirements for keeping up the cold chain, either.

“Any easier method of vaccination will help reach more people and we are desperately chasing sufficient numbers to flatten the expected fourth wave.”

Kidron also said oral vaccines could hold the key to finally defeating Covid, as it would allow for rapid distribution and did not require ultralow temperature storage.

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“And because they do not involve injections, they do not generate potentially hazardous biohazard medical waste from syringes and plastics,” he added.

“All these factors could help reduce vaccine hesitancy and drive uptake in the developing world, where the need for mass vaccine roll-outs remains critical.

In a statement, Oramed said the oral form will eliminate several barriers to rapid, widescale distribution, potentially enabling people to administer the vaccine themselves at home.

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za