FRIDAY, June 12, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Oral polio<\/a> vaccines<\/a> might provide temporary protection against the new coronavirus while scientists try to develop a vaccine<\/a> to fight COVID-19<\/a> infection, experts say.<\/p>\n Evidence suggests that inoculations such as polio<\/a> vaccines<\/a> protect children against a number of infections, so it makes sense to test if polio vaccines<\/a> can ward off the new coronavirus, Konstantin Chumakov, Dr. Robert Gallo, and colleagues wrote in Science<\/i> magazine, CNN<\/i> reported.<\/p>\n Chumakov is associate director for research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine<\/a> division, and Gallo, of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland, co-discovered HIV<\/a>, the virus that causes AIDS<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We propose the use of OPV [oral poliovirus vaccine<\/a>] to ameliorate or prevent COVID-19<\/a>,” they wrote. “Both poliovirus and coronavirus are positive-strand RNA viruses<\/a>; therefore, it is likely that they may induce and be affected by common innate immunity mechanisms.”<\/p>\n They noted that oral polio vaccines<\/a> are safe, cheap, easy to administer and widely available, with more than 1 billion doses made and used each year in more than 140 countries, CNN<\/i> reported.<\/p>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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