UK, US teams begin trials of coronavirus nasal spray vaccines

Scientists at Oxford University in the UK will test whether the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine can be administered through a nasal spray. (File/AFP)

• AstraZeneca jab to follow COVI-VAC early stage trials in Britain
• Russia also working on Sputnik V vaccine spray, tablet vaccines in pipeline

LONDON: Scientists at Oxford University in the UK will test whether the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine can be administered through a nasal spray, after a US company launched a trial of its own spray in the UK.
It is hoped that sprays, which are already used to give children flu vaccines, may prove superior to injections in targeting immune cells more susceptible to respiratory viruses in the future, concentrating on the lungs, throat and nose.
They may also alleviate issues for people with a fear of needles, and ease supply problems owing to the complexity of manufacturing, transporting and storing jabs.
The Oxford team is planning for 30 volunteers to receive the spray and then be tracked for four months in the initial stage of the trial, before expanding the scale if found to be safe.
Prof. Sarah Gilbert, one of the lead scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, told the UK’s House of Commons Science and Technology Committee last month that researchers were exploring nasal sprays, as well as ways to deliver the vaccine in tablet form.
“As you know, all the vaccines have been given at the moment as intramuscular injections,” she said. “That is not necessarily the best way to provide protection against a respiratory virus infection, where we want the immune system to be active in the upper respiratory tract and then in the lower respiratory tract, which is where the virus is causing the infection.
“We have flu vaccines that are given by nasal spray and this could be a very good approach in the future to use vaccines against coronaviruses,” she added.
A New York-based company, Codagenix, has already launched a trial of another nasal spray vaccine, COVI-VAC, on 48 volunteers in London, following successful animal tests.
COVI-VAC, a live attenuated vaccine, uses a genetically modified version of the coronavirus to stimulate the body’s immune system response. The Oxford vaccine, meanwhile, is an adenovirus vaccine, which uses a weakened, genetically-modified cold virus to stimulate an immune response.
Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology is also trialing a nasal spray version of the Sputnik V vaccine.
Scientists at the University of Birmingham in the UK, meanwhile, are also working on a treatment for coronavirus — also delivered via nasal spray — that works by capturing and neutralizing virus cells in the upper respiratory tract before they can progress to other parts of the body.