Vaccines for Future: Intranasal vaccines can be the solution to seemingly never-ending COVID

COVID isn't yet ready to take a back seat and talking about the cases in India, around 20,000 daily infections are reported each day. However, while the virus is constantly mutating and impacting people here, there is constant development even in the field of medicine too.

One such significant milestone was touched recently by Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturer, Bharat Biotech, that completed phase 3 clinical trials for India's first intranasal COVID vaccine, named BBV154. Here's all you need to know about the intranasal vaccines, that can help fight the virus efficiently.

With the emergence of newer variants, it is important for us to restore an effective immune system and it is only possible with an improved lifestyle and getting jabbed with booster doses. Here, Intranasal vaccines can be a major breakthrough as they are easier to use and safer.

"BBV154 (intra nasal vaccine) has proven to be safe, well-tolerated, and immunogenic in subjects in controlled clinical trials," said Bharat Biotech in a press release.

Additionally, the nasal delivery system has been designed and developed to be cost-effective in low and middle-income countries. Reportedly, the BBV154 is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein. This allows this vaccine to be used as a primary dose.

According to experts, nasal immunisation can also help in preventing the overall transmission of coronavirus. As of now, the world has been using the traditional intramuscular vaccine which is typically injected into the arms. However, the approval of the intranasal vaccine will make it easier to deploy mass immunisation campaigns with an easy-to-administer formulation and delivery device.