India issues licenses for nasal Covid-19 vaccine
With Covid-19 under control to some extent, preventing transmission is the aim of next-generation vaccines.
Many believe those vaccines will be delivered through a nasal inhaler. The mode of delivery could stop transmission by creating immunity where the virus enters the body.
India already has a nasal vaccine, though its effectiveness is unknown, and it was designed in the US.
Researchers Michael Diamond and David Curiel, both professors at the Washington University School of Medicine, pitched their vaccine to Big Pharma in the US, no one was interested, so they approached Indian vaccine maker Bharat Biotech, which received approval last month to give it to adults in India.
“Intranasal vaccines, vaccines that are variant-resistant, those are critical tools to have in the toolbox for protecting Americans — not just for Covid but also for future pandemics and also for future biosecurity threats,” said Ashish Jha, Whitehouse Covid-19 response coordinator.
A vaccine that prevents coronavirus spread will better protect people if a deadlier variant emerges, added Karin Bok of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center.
Nasal vaccines could also be more appealing to people who didn’t get vaccinated because they fear needles or to parents hesitant to vaccinate their children.
