Oral Mucosal Vacicnation is used in some cases like Polio, typhoid etc but not as commonly as injected vaccines, but scientists from The Forsyth Institute and Tufts University have found a way to use Oral Vaccine delivery more useful by taking help of a commonly found bacteria in the Oral cavity – Streptococcus mitis. This bacteria will act as a Vector or carrier of the vaccine and will help in Oral mucosal vaccination.
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Injected Vaccines are great in providing protection to internal organs but the mucosal layer of the Oral cavity, Respiratory Tract and the Gastro intestinal tract are often left unprotected, but with the help of this vaccine delivery system and taking the help of the Bacteria S. Mutans which will help in transporting the vaccine to the Mucosal layers will be very useful in fighting diseases like diarrhoea and other diseases which affect these parts of the body like Tuberculosis and AIDS.
Dr. Antonio Campos-Neto who is the senior member of the Department of Immunology and Infectious diseases at Forsyth Institute said “Although injected vaccines are traditionally viewed as effective means of immunization to protect internal organs, these vaccines rarely induce strong mucosal protection in the gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract and genitalia. In contrast, oral vaccinations have the potential to affordably, safely and effectively protect these areas, thus assisting in the fight against global health threats including diarrhoeas and diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS,” he is also the lecturer at Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
So if this type of Vaccination technique is successful it will be helpful in providing protection to the mucosal covering areas which are caused due to diseases like Tuberculosis which has been said to have killed 1.5 million people in 2013 and nine million people have been affected by this disease in that year.
If this type of technique of vaccination is successful then it will be a great discovery which will help making vaccination more affordable and safer and more reachable to developing countries where the diseases are causing the most damage.
The Article is titled “Streptococcus mitis as a vector for Oral Mucosal Vaccination” published by Forsyth Institute on December 15th, 2014. Which concentrates on the methods and results found demonstrating that this method of immunization is beneficial to developing countries.
Good resource everybody need to learn about it !
Thanks for sharing this wonderful article about oral vaccination