According to the researchers, this nasal vaccine aims to “fight the virus that causes covid-19 in the places where it first settles”, having passed immunological protection tests.
German research institutions announced on Monday the development of an intranasal vaccine against covid-19, which has passed immunological protection tests and is now entering the safety phase and clinical trials.
The vaccine to prevent infections by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was developed by a team of researchers from the Freie Universität Berlin and the Max Delbrück Center and the results of immune protection were published this Monday in the scientific journal Nature Microbiology.
In a sentence, The research centers said that this nasal vaccine aims to “combat the virus that causes covid-19 in places where it is installed for the first time”such as the mucous membranes of the nose, mouth, throat and lungs, and that the results indicate that “it confers better immunity than vaccines injected into the muscle”.
As of fall 2022, two nasal vaccine formulations have been approved for use in India and China, and several other intranasal vaccines are currently being developed and tested in various countries.
The researchers explained that In the case of injectable vaccines, the immune system “only detects and fights an infection relatively late” caused by the coronavirus through the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract.
“It is here, therefore, that we need local immunity if we want to intercept a respiratory virus early on,” said Jakob Trimpert, one of the study’s authors and research group leader at the Freie Universität Berlin’s Institute of Virology.
The scientists tested the efficacy of the newly developed intranasal vaccine in hamsters, as these rodents are currently considered model organisms, as they can be infected with the same virus variants as humans and develop similar symptoms.
The results indicated that, after two doses of the vaccine, the virus was unable to replicate in the bodywhich led to the conclusion that it caused “a strong activation of immunological memory and that the mucous membranes were very well protected by the high concentration of antibodies,” said Jakob Trimpert.
The next step is safety testing and, for this, researchers from German institutions are collaborating with a Swiss biotechnology start-up, which is developing the attenuated vaccine and preparing a phase 1 clinical trial in humans.
Given that they are administered as “sprays” or nasal drops, the researchers believe that nasal vaccines will be a good choice for use in settings with limited access to trained medical personnel, as well as being cheaper to produce and easier to store and transport. .
Source: Observadora
