promote immunity in the deepest parts of the lungs, where COVID-19 can wreak the most damage, Miller adds.
There’s another benefit to that effectiveness, besides personal protection — you don’t have to use as much vaccine to get the same response.
“By focusing that immune response in the lungs, we can use a lot less vaccine and it still goes a lot further,” Miller shares. “During this pandemic, we’ve experienced global shortages in the availability of vaccines. Having this dose-sparing effect means we could produce a hundred times more vaccine, or vaccinate a hundred times more people in the same amount of time with the same amount of material.”
Inhaled vaccines also would be “greatly advantageous” in promoting COVID-19 vaccination around the world, Adalja says, “as they free vaccines from needles and syringes, which can be difficult to obtain in certain resource-poor settings, as well as opening up vaccination to needle-phobic individuals.”
A vaccine for the needle-phobic should not be overlooked, according to Dr. Corey Casper, CEO of the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle.
“In surveys, about 20% of individuals who are not vaccinated say they would take one if it were not delivered with a shot. That’s not a small fraction, and we need to focus on that,” Casper shares.
Miller and his colleagues aren’t the only ones investigating the benefits of an inhaled vaccine.
The Indian firm Bharat Biotech has developed a COVID-19 vaccine that would be sprayed into the nose. The company received approval in January to begin phase 3 clinical trials in humans.
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And a group of Yale University researchers recently issued a study of lab mice showing that a COVID-19 nasal spray vaccine could boost