The device looks like a plastic cup with a straw, and filled with thick whitish smoke. Since the end of October, China has begun the deployment of a new vaccine against Covid, in the form of inhalation and not injection. No more bites, you have to inhale the smoke through your mouth, holding your breath. The procedure takes about twenty seconds, describe the Chinese media.
Line the throat and nose against virus entry
This vaccine was approved in early September, and is only used as a booster. Primary vaccination should always be by intramuscular injection. The product itself is moreover only an aerosolized version of the vaccine developed by the Chinese CanSino Biologics.
So what’s the point? Essentially limiting contamination upstream, by “lining” the mucous membranes of the mouth, nose and throat, where the other available vaccines only prevent serious forms downstream. ” This is to neutralize the virus as soon as it enters the bodydescribes Vincent Maréchal, virologist at Sorbonne University and at the Saint Antoine research center. These vaccines must thus prevent infection and transmission of the virus. »
An effectiveness that remains to be proven
The principle must prove itself in reality. “ It is very difficult to measure the effectiveness of this type of vaccinerecognizes Vincent Maréchal. They stimulate another type of immune response, with other lymphocytes and other antibodies, and we have no reference for their protection. This vaccine, built from old versions of the virus, could also prove to be limited against variants.
And the question of the duration of protection remains unresolved. Other vaccines working according to this principle already exist against the flu, in the United States and Canada. But in France, health authorities determined that there was “ no demonstrated clinical benefit to these products compared to the existing one.
In India, another vaccine in the form of an inhalation was authorized at the beginning of September. The product, developed by Bharat Biotech, comes in the form of a nasal spray and not a mouth spray this time around. India has yet to roll it out, however. Other anti-Covid vaccines with administration by inhalation or oral route are still in the development phase, particularly in Canada and the United States. In Europe, German universities are working on the subject, as well as the University of Tours and Inrae. But their research has only just begun. In France, clinical trials should begin in September 2023.