The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that authorities in Shanghai had begun distributing an inhalable vaccine against Covid-19, a world first. According to an announcement on an official city social media account, the vaccine is being distributed for free as a booster dosage to already immunised people.
According to the Associated Press, the vaccine is a mist that is sucked in through the mouth. Based on the story, a video broadcast online by a Chinese state media site showed people at a community health centre inserting the small nozzle of a translucent white cup into their mouths.
According to the accompanying text, people hold their breath for five seconds after slowly inhaling, with the total exercise taking 20 seconds. According to the Associated Press, one Shanghai resident commented in the video, “It was like sipping a cup of milk tea.” “It tasted a little sweet when I breathed it in.”
The inhalable vaccination was developed by the Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics Inc. as an aerosol version of its one-shot adenovirus vaccine, which employs a relatively innocuous cold virus, according to the Associated Press.
In September of this year, India’s national drug regulator approved Bharat Biotech’s iNCOVACC, the country’s first intranasal Covid-19 vaccine, for use in unvaccinated adults in an emergency.
iNCOVACC, which employs a modified chimp adenovirus, will be administered via the nasal route, perhaps eliciting an immune response in the mucosal membrane. It is intended to not only guard against infection but also to prevent virus transmission.
The vaccine has not yet been included in India’s national immunisation programme. Bharat Biotech, the Covaxin maker, originally unveiled an intranasal vaccine in September 2020, following the first wave of the pandemic. At the time, it was widely regarded as a potential game changer.
Any needle-free vaccine, whether intranasal or inhalable, would be simple to give and would reduce the reliance on trained staff, making mass immunisation more accessible in poorer countries and countries with weak healthcare infrastructure. Furthermore, doctors have stated that needle-free doses may persuade patients who dislike being injected to obtain the vaccine.
According to the World Health Organization, while over a dozen nasal vaccines are being studied globally, the effectiveness of non-needle vaccines has yet to be properly tested. Except for some flu vaccines, this method of delivery has not been particularly successful.
Furthermore, only very little amounts of the vaccine can be squirted into each nostril, and the same is true for inhalable formulations.
