Highlights:
- India is, currently, administering Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines for the inoculation drive
- Nasal COVID-19 vaccines are coming out and they could be a gamechanger as per experts
Will the Nasal COVID-19 vaccines going to be the gamechanger needed for the Coronavirus pandemic? There are many experts who believe so. According to them, the intranasal vaccine will be able to secure an immune response at the site of infection.
In the case of the novel coronavirus, the site of infection is the nose.
In a tweet, the Joint Managing Director (JMD) of Apollo Hospitals, Dr Sangita Reddy wrote, “Given their remarkable allure to block COVID-19 transmission we do need on priority an all hands on deck approach to manufacturing”.
She added, “The case is very well explained below,” while adding haring an article titled “Scent of a vaccine” on sciencemag.org.
Can mucosal (intranasal) vaccine be a gamechanger for #SARSCoV2
— Dr. Sangita Reddy (@drsangitareddy) July 27, 2021
Given their remarkable allure to block #COVID19 transmission we do need on priority an all hands on deck approach to manufacturing
The case very well explained below https://t.co/tf6n7bWyNQ@WHO @ICMRDELHI pic.twitter.com/4gTgYx5paW
Unlike the traditional and most common approach of injecting the vaccines into the body, the intranasal vaccine is administered nasally through a spray and requires only a single dose.
A nasal spray vaccine will also be able to help in checking the transmission of the virus. Additionally, this method of administering the vaccine eliminates the need for syringes and needles, and neither does it require trained healthcare workers to administer it.
Trails to manufacture the nasal vaccines are already underway in India with Bharat Biotech having already completed the phase-1 clinical trials of its intranasal vaccine candidate, BBV154.
Bharat Biotech has also submitted the data to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
Currently, what is the biggest inoculation drive in the world, India is administering 3 COVID-19 vaccines:
- Serum Institute of India’s Covishield
- Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin
- Russia’s Sputnik V
As the warnings came in from the health experts and authorities about a probable advent of a third wave of the deadly coronavirus in the form of the Delta variant, which is likely to affect children, the Union Health Minister Mansukh Laxmanbhai Mandaviya clarified there is no scientific evidence either in India or globally to show that children get disproportionately infected with COVID-19, including its Delta variant.
Mandaviya added that multiple waves have been noticed across the world.
He said, “The (third) wave may occur either due to mutations in the virus or due to the available pool of susceptible population, which in turn is also dependent on various pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions for the management of the pandemic”.
