#Coronavirus vaccine may be stronger through nasal spray

As the global race to find a vaccine for the coronavirus heats up, British researchers say immunizations may be more effective if delivered through a nasal spray as opposed to an injection, reports said.

Scientists from Oxford University and Imperial College London — who are currently undergoing human trials of COVID-19 vaccines administered through an injection — are planning to launch a second wave of studies looking into “mucosal immunization,” the Daily Mail reported. 

“At the moment most of the vaccines are being delivered by conventional intramuscular injection… The reason is that’s the easiest and fastest to get off the starting blocks and into studies. But a number of us [are] interested in looking at mucosal immunization, as well,” Professor Robin Shattock, an immunologist at Imperial, told the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.

“And certainly [Oxford’s] Professor Gilbert and myself are already in discussion as to how we might be able to move that as a second wave of clinical study.”

Sarah Gilbert, a professor of vaccinology at Oxford, added vaccines delivered orally or nasally “would have much stronger mucosal response,” which is “probably really important in the protection against respiratory pathogens.”

However, Gilbert said it’s “very difficult to study and we’re not yet very good at measuring it.”

“But, as Professor Shattock said, we’re very interested in looking at delivery to the respiratory tract, either intranasal delivery [via a nasal spray] or aerosol delivery [using an inhaler],” Gilbert said, according to the Daily Mail.

“This takes the vaccine itself right down into the lungs where it can access the same tissue that would be reached by the virus infection.”

In addition, elderly people, who are most at risk from dying of COVID-19, don’t respond to traditional vaccines as well as younger, healthier people do but could respond better with a mucosal immunization because it directly protects the lungs, the outlet reported.

Currently, Oxford is leading the charge for a COVID-19 cure and their vaccine is currently being tested on more than 10,000 people in Britain, Brazil and South Africa, the outlet reported.