Smallpox Vaccine Against COVID-19 Possible? Are We Seeing the End of Pandemic?

Health reports recently revealed that one expert has helped with the expansion on how authorities could develop a "lifelong COVID-19 jab."

A Daily Express report said that according to the United Kingdom Health Security Agency announcement last month that created two new slots for the most vulnerable people of the country, Britons can expect up to two more COVID-19 shots this year.

Health officials, through UKHSA, would provide the next shot in June and another in autumn. These new jabs would make the fourth and fifth doses, following the booster shot administered to everyone in December.

The incoming vaccines would come allocated for older Britons as well as those who have chronic conditions that make them more susceptible to serious illness.

Key to a Lifetime Vaccine

The new plans shed a light on susceptibilities in the presently available crop of injections as COVID-19 has mutated several times to exploit the weakness and work around their protection.

Most authorities have settled on boosters as their main means of beating the mutations, with no reports of a lifelong single-dose jab on the horizon.

That does not mean one is impossible though, as experts have outlined how scientists could attain this goal. According to the chief scientific officer at the London Medical Laboratory, Dr. Quinton Fivelman, the answer may lie in an illness that "once plagued Queen Elizabeth I." He elaborated, it is possible that the "most successful vaccination of all," which is the smallpox vaccine, could hold the key to a lifetime vaccine.

Smallpox Vaccine

Dr. Fivelman explained, smallpox was highly contagious. It killed roughly 30 percent of all people who were infected with it and left many others, including Queen Elizabeth I, with permanent scarring. In the 20th century, a global vaccination campaign totally eliminated the disease.

The chief scientific officer continued explaining saying, an early study has started to incorporate revelations from the smallpox vaccine into COVID-19 candidate, Times News Express said in a related report.

Michinori Kohara, a Japanese scientist, emeritus investigator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, in coordination with the National Institute of Infectious disease, has begun to develop a "lifelong jab" for coronavirus based on the study he has carried out on smallpox.

The scientist has tweaked the "vaccina" virus used in the smallpox vaccine to control the spike protein of the COVID-19 infection. It is believed that this will offer a very effective and safe viral vector for carrying the pike gene, a similar Fynne Fettle report said.

An End to Booster Shots

If the study is proven effective, it could generate neutralizing antibodies within one week of injection and create the strongest cellular immunity of any vaccine.

Dr. Fivelman explained that the prospective candidate could provide long-term protection against COVID-19. He added, other scientists all over the world are trying to develop a lifelong or at least, long-lasting jab, as well.

Meaning said the doctor "we could eventually see the end to yearly booster shots." The news comes as COVID-19 cases begin to fall drastically across the UK.

The most recent data shows that rates for positive tests declined to their lowest since 2021. While incomplete, numbers for the first week of March showed that health officials traced another 23,578 positive cases.

The figure is the lowest since September 11, 2021, when the Government recorded over 23,000. And it exhibits a substantial climbdown from the week before, in February, when more than 36,000 people tested positive.

Related information about the efficacy of COVID-19 booster is shown on Mayo Clinic's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on COVID-19 and Vaccines in Science Times.