What if the injections were soon no longer necessary to protect against Covid-19? Researchers from the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Inrae) and the University of Tours have filed a patent for a nasal vaccine candidate.
The advantage of such a technology: being able to prevent the virus from entering the body through the nose. “Unlike intramuscular vaccines, only vaccines administered by the nasal route would be able to prevent the presence of viruses in the nose, the initial stage of infection. They indeed induce immunity at the level of the nasal mucous membranes, portal of entry and place of multiplication of the virus ”, explained the scientists in a press release.
“Experiments have shown that the vaccine stops transmission very early. I work on animals that are infected: two days later, I notice that the viral load in the lungs is explosive. If I look at the same thing on animals that have been vaccinated and infected, I find no trace of the virus in the lungs, ”researcher Isabelle Dimier-Poisson told AFP.
This vaccine, based on viral proteins, has already had encouraging results against severe forms of the disease in mice, with “100% survival” in mice vaccinated and then infected with the coronavirus, against “100% mortality” in unvaccinated rodents.
Candidate for callbacks
Sprayed into the nose using a needleless syringe, this nasal vaccine could be used as a booster dose. Asked by France Blue, Philippe Mauguin, director of INRAE, indicated that clinical trials on humans should begin in the second half of 2022, for marketing in 2023. “We will probably have for our country a large majority of the vaccinated population. And we cannot exclude recalls if there are still forms of variants that continue. The vaccine project we are working on could be a candidate for boosters, ”he told local radio.
The product developed by Inrae can also be stored easily, several months at room temperature, and up to several years in a fridge at 4 degrees.