Could intranasal SARS-CoV-2 vaccines be a practical alternative to intramuscular shots?
The unchecked advance of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has made it a top public health priority to produce a vaccine capable of inducing a safe and powerful protective response against its causative pathogen: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). An encouraging new preprint, that appeared on the
bioRxiv* server shows the immunogenicity, safety, and protective efficacy, of a Newcastle disease virus (NDV)-based intranasal vector vaccine in animal studies.
A host of candidate vaccines being developed against SARS-CoV-2 use viral vector platforms to present the SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen to the host immune system. Many have used the intramuscular route (i.e., ‘jabs’ or ‘shots’), but the intranasal route allows the development of local or mucosal immunity as well as systemic immunity against the virus. This will allow protection against not just symptomatic disease, but against the establishment of infection in the upper respiratory tract as well. This will help to break the chain of viral transmission effectively.