Researchers Say Nasal Vaccine Might Work Better Than Injection Shots for COVID-19
July 21, 2020 13:37(Image source from: gatorpremedicalguide.org)
Researchers who are working on nasal vaccine for COVID-19 say that nasal sprays would boost immunity rapidly than injections.
A few groups of researchers from New York’s Cornell University have been working on the nasal vaccine. There are already two dozens of vaccine candidates being developed across the world for COVID-19. Amid all these, researchers are trying their hands on nasal vaccines and they have found some interesting studies on it.
They have found out that vaccines in terms of nasal sprays are proving to be more effective in prevention of coronavirus than injection shots.
Not just this, the researchers have also informed that in most of the positive cases being detected in the world, the virus mostly finds its way directly to the lungs and then affects the rest of the body. In worst cases, the virus aggravates leading to the death of the patient. So, they say that lungs are first in line to get affected due to coronavirus and the nasal vaccine or the nasal spray vaccine directly affects the lungs and would rapidly spread throughout the body through the oxygen in the blood vessels.
The scientists of Cornell University also claim that a vaccine ingested nasally would boost immunity faster. This makes the nasal vaccine a much more effective one in comparison with injections.
Moreover, the nasal vaccine is believed to enhance the effectiveness of ‘T-cell’ which is a type of ‘lymphocyte’ that develops in the thymus gland and plays a key role in the immune response.
One of the most important functions of this T-cell is immune-mediated cell death. It is carried out in many ways.
CD8 + T-cells are a powerful combination which can help in directly killing the virus infected cells. Also, a combination of T-cells and CD4 cells function as helper cells which can indirectly kill cells that are identified as foreign.
For this reason, nasal sprays are believed to seriously boost immunity and also can help in eliminating the virus quickly.
The University of Southampton in England has already deployed a few researchers to test the use of a special kind of nasal inhaler that could treat coronavirus.
These researchers from England claimed that their inhaler besides reducing the coronavirus contamination in lungs is also helping in reducing the viral load in the body.
The medicine has been named as SNG1001 by the researchers and it contains inferno-beta 1-alpha, a special kind of protein that is proven to boost the immunity.
American Researchers too are proceeding with the research on nasal vaccine against COVID-19.
By Gayatri Yellayi