In a new study from McMaster University, researchers have developed an inhaled form of COVID vaccine have confirmed it can provide broad, long-lasting protection against the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 and variants of concern.
They found the immune mechanisms and strong benefits of vaccines being delivered directly into the respiratory tract, rather than by traditional injection.
Because inhaled vaccines target the lungs and upper airways where respiratory viruses first enter the body, they are far more effective at inducing a protective immune response.
The team has discovered from many years’ research is that the vaccine delivered into the lung induces all-around protective respiratory mucosal immunity, a property that the injected vaccine is lacking.
This vaccine might also provide pre-emptive protection against a future pandemic.
The team found that besides neutralizing antibodies and T cell immunity, the vaccine delivered into the lungs stimulates a unique form of immunity known as trained innate immunity.
This is able to provide very broad protection against many lung pathogens besides SARS-CoV-2.
In additional to being needle and pain-free, an inhaled vaccine is so efficient at targeting the lungs and upper airways that it can achieve maximum protection with a small fraction of the dose of current vaccines—possibly as little as 1 percent—meaning a single batch of vaccine could go 100 times further.
The team says this pandemic has shown that vaccine supply can be a huge challenge.
Demonstrating that this alternative delivery method can strongly extend vaccine supply could be a game-changer, particularly in a pandemic setting.
If you care about Covid, please read studies that COVID-19 infection, more likely than vaccines, to cause heart inflammation, and this nasal vaccine may help fight new viral variants.
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The study is published in Cell and was conducted by Zhou Xing et al.
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