Author: Aniruda Gosar
Associated Press
NEW DELHI (AP) — India and China have identified a new method of vaccinating against COVID-19 — two needle-free options, one sprayed in the nose and the other inhaled through the mouth.
Indian regulators on September 6 approved the nasal version of Bharat Biotech as an option for people who have not yet been vaccinated.
“This step will further strengthen our collective fight against the pandemic,” Indian Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Twitter.
It is unclear how effective the nasal version is. Bharat did not immediately release the results of its study, nor did it say how soon the new option would be rolled out.
CanSino Biologics announced on Sept. 4 that Chinese regulators have approved an inhaled version of the company’s injected COVID-19 vaccine for use as a booster dose. The company noted that preliminary results from the study suggest that the inhaled version can boost immune protection after a single puff. It’s unclear if this will translate into improved efficiency, or how soon the inhalation booster will be available.
Today’s COVID-19 vaccines are shots that have saved millions of lives and continue to provide strong protection against severe illness and death, even as more contagious variants of the coronavirus spread.
However, injection-free versions are being explored as a strategy to improve protection against infection, with particular interest in nasal vaccines designed to ward off the entry of the virus into the body. According to the World Health Organization, there are nearly a dozen potential vaccine candidates in various stages of testing around the world, and CanSino is one of two inhaled vaccine candidates in development.
India’s nasal vaccine was developed by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis and later licensed to Indian vaccine maker Bharat Biotech. The company ran two trials, giving 3,100 previously unvaccinated volunteers two doses of the vaccine and a booster vaccine to about 875 volunteers who had received two other COVID-19 vaccines.
Bharat is also seeking approval for the nasal spray as a booster for two-thirds of India’s already vaccinated people.
Bharat’s nasal spray uses a harmless chimpanzee cold virus that delivers a copy of the coronavirus’s spike protein to the lining of the nose, training the body to respond when it encounters the real virus.
CanSino’s inhaler booster uses a similarly harmless human cold virus — the company’s single-dose vaccine turned into a nebulized form. The inhaled vaccine is largely being tested as a booster for people who have received another Chinese company’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Scientists are looking at nasal and inhaled COVID-19 vaccine options because the immune system has specialized tools to protect our bodies in slightly different ways, said Ashley St. John, an immunologist at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. different parts of.
“The advantage of the nasal vaccine is that it may clear the virus before it has a chance to establish and replicate in the lungs,” said Dr Vineeta Bal, an immunologist and professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education in Pune city.
Bal added that the advantages of spraying the vaccine by mouth will depend on the size of the individual droplets in the spray. Large droplets will train the defenses of the mouth and parts of the throat, while smaller droplets are expected to travel deeper and reach the lungs.
Nasal sprays may be easier than injections, especially in low-income countries, said Dr. Michael Diamond of Washington University in St. Louis, who helped develop the vaccine licensed for Bharat.
In October 2021, the Russian Ministry of Health allowed early trials of Sputnik V nasal in 500 volunteers, but the status of those trials and the availability of the vaccine remain unclear.
Vaccination rates in India have declined over the past few months and cases have been found to be stabilizing. About 940 million people, or 67 percent of the population, received the first two injections, but only 15 percent received the third booster.
