Infectious disease specialist Dr. Zain Chagla talks McMaster University inhale vaccines and subvariant BA.2

Researchers at McMaster University have confirmed that two of its newly developed coronavirus vaccines can provide long-lasting protection against COVID-19 and mutated variants. So to discuss that and more surrounding the pandemic, we welcomed infectious disease specialist, Dr. Zain Chagla.

He says this is great news because the inhaled vaccine gives much more opportunity for wider distribution in mass quantities.

“Great work on the McMaster infectious disease research institute that has been doing incredible work repurposing vaccines for this purpose, ” said Chagla. “As we get more stable vaccine platforms that are able to give lots of immunity tp this and other variants, I think we’ll likely see even more control of this disease in our community.”

Chagla says an inhaled vaccine may give people more immunity locally and may be able to be made into a dry powder, which can be shipped in an inhaler all over the world.

“There’s lots of projects like this McMaster one all around the world and we should be really excited, we may see new vaccines in the next six to 12 months,” said Chagla.

Canada is the only G7 country still requiring pre-departure and on-arrival PCR testing for fully vaccinated international passengers. Chagla says there are a lot of things wrong with this.

“The cost to the individual traveler, which is thousands of dollars for molecular tests compared to other tests, there’s the fact that tax payers are paying for these tests at the airport, which is billions of dollars in taxpayer money,” said Chagla.

He says the tests could also remain positive for a long time, considering a lot of the population may have gotten COVID-19.

“This is something that is likely causing harm to travelers,” said Chagla. “There’s better ways to do this and our international allies I think have found a better balance by using vaccine status or rapid antigen testing as their way to get travelers travelling again.”

The Omicron variant numbers are dropping, but there is a new variant called BA.2. Chagla says the population that has been vaccinated is probably not catching the variant in high quantities.

“Most people suggest that the drop of cases may be slower if BA.2 starts taking over, but at least in Ontario we haven’t seen a ton of it,” said Chagla.