Indian Intranasal vaccine to fight COVID-19 |
India`s vaccine developing company, Bharat Biotech International Limited, had been working to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 that would be make it easy to administer like `polio drops`. Currently, the COVAXIN vaccine by Bharat Biotech is an intramuscular injection. Bharat Biotech has started the process of screening potential clinical trial participants for their new nasal vaccine against COVID-19. An intranasal vaccine stimulates a broad immune response neutralizing IgG, mucosal IgA, and T cell responses and creates an immune response at the site of infection essential for blocking both infection and transmission of COVID-19. It will be cheaper and cost-effective besides being easy to administer with no injections. Bharat Biotech has said that the scalability to manufacture this would help meet the global demand. That it is non-invasive and needle-free is an added advantage. The nasal vaccine will not require trained healthcare workers as it would go inside the nasal cavity like drops. This would also eliminate the injuries and infections associated with needles. A vaccine administered intranasally, if approved after clinical trials, will be a game-changer. Some of the adverse effects related to vaccination can be attributed to how injections are administered. An intranasal vaccine, if proved to be free of adverse effects, will help in improving the vaccine coverage. Since the virus harbors in the nasopharynx, it will be interesting to examine its efficacy in inducing local immunity. If yes, then this might turn out to be better than other vaccines in terms of preventing the infection. The nasal vaccine can also have high compliance as it would be ideally suited for children and adults. The developers at the Bharat Biotech are working towards a single-dose intranasal vaccine. Such a vaccine, if approved, would also help slash down logistics and cost. Bharat Biotech received the approval to start the phase 1 clinical trials of the vaccine on 19 January 2021. The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) functional under the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) has even approved to amend Phase I Clinical Trial protocol of Adenoviral vector COVID19 vaccine (BBV154) (Intranasal) proposed by Bharat Biotech.
|
|
|
|