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This one vaccine could end the COVID pandemic, experts say! This vaccine could curb both coronavirus transmission and infection!
Hope for an end to the pandemic?
Most of us saw the COVID vaccine as a light at the end of the tunnel when it first appeared in the world. But over the past year, the pandemic has continued in the face of the emergence of the fast-spreading delta variant and a significant drop in vaccination rates. Now, health experts and authorities are looking at new ways to stop the spread of COVID for good, such as vaccination requirements, reintroduced mask restrictions and booster shots. However, some experts express hope that the end of the pandemic will come with an entirely different vaccine.
Can this vaccine save us?
Marty Moore, PhD, chief executive officer of Meissa Vaccines, recently told Business Insider that a nasal vaccine, also known as an intranasal vaccine, could be the answer to getting the country back to normal. “An intranasal vaccine could help end the pandemic and give us real control over SARS-CoV-2 by limiting infection and transmission,” Moore explained. “We should not settle for a new normal. We can return to the old normal.”
The main difference between the three COVID vaccines currently approved in the U.S. and a nasal vaccine is that the latter may also be able to prevent transmission of the virus and mild infections. Current COVID vaccines are designed to protect a person’s vital organs, such as the lungs and heart, from severe infection, but they do not always protect against transmission and breakthrough cases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while vaccinated people are less contagious than unvaccinated people, they can still spread the virus to others if they become infected.
Vaccinations do not protect against breakthrough infections
At an IDWeek infectious disease conference, Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital in New York, explained that people who have been vaccinated against COVID are still susceptible to mild breakthrough infections because available vaccines do not help people develop mucosal immunity to COVID. Mucosal immunity protects against infections that can occur through wet tissues in the nose, eyes, and mouth. It could also prevent any transmission that occurs in the nostrils.
“In the initial honeymoon period after vaccination, when neutralizing antibodies are highest, there is some spillover effect in the upper respiratory tract,” Gounder tells Business Insider. In the long run, however, there is no effect. Instead, experts “need to find another way to elicit a mucosal response that complements the systemic immune response,” Gounder says, which could be done with an intranasal vaccine.
Vaccine without a needle
Nasal vaccines that don’t require a needle could also help increase vaccination coverage. “There are quite a number of people who would rather get drops in their nose than a needle. So I think an intranasal vaccine could reach not everyone, but a lot of vaccine-shy people,” Moore told Business Insider. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), between 11.5 million and 66 million people in the U.S. are unvaccinated due to fear of needles.
However, some experts warn against putting too much hope in nasal vaccines. According to GoodRx, there is currently only one nasal spray vaccine available in the U.S.: the FluMist Quadrivalent flu vaccine. FluMist contains live, attenuated strains of the flu virus and triggers an immune response in the nose. However, certain groups of people, such as pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, are not allowed to use vaccines that contain live viruses because they could cause infection.
And as for efforts to find a nasal vaccine against COVID, many infectious disease experts have warned that the possibility is still a long way off. According to Gounder, no intranasal vaccines are currently in the final stages of testing, so GoodRx says the possibility of a nasal spray vaccine is not before 2022. Moore’s company, Meissa, and another US company, Codagenix, are developing nasal COVID vaccines, but both are only in the early stages of human trials.
According to Moore, Meissa’s initial clinical data suggest that unvaccinated patients given a few drops of the nasal vaccine in each nostril have slightly higher mucosal antibody levels, on average, than people who have natural immunity to COVID infections.
“The data suggest that we can provide immunity that resembles a natural infection, and do so safely,” Moore told Business Insider. “Our goal is to be the COVID vaccine that blocks transmission.”