Indian nasal vaccine will be a game-changer against Covid
healthcare workers to vaccinate a large number of people in a short span of time, since this vaccine will not need any injection that would be needed to be inserted into the human body and can just be used by spraying the solution into the nasal passage of humans.
The vaccine will also cut down the barriers of delivering and storing traditional vaccines which usually require a huge ecosystem.
Not only this, since the vaccine is intranasal, it will help reduce the use of syringes, needles and other components such as alcohol swabs and a medical setup to administer traditional vaccines, therefore saving time and resources.
Bharat Biotech also claims that since BBV154 is a noninvasive vaccine it also eliminates needle-related injuries and infections. Moreover, this would be a single dose, two-drop vaccine and, therefore, no one has to come back for a booster dose.
HOW IT IS DEVELOPED
This vaccine has been developed on the lines of the Covishield vaccine that has been developed by the Serum Institute. It has used the same adenovirus, which is a common virus found in chimpanzees. It would be an inactivated vaccine.
The company, which has so far conducted clinical trials on animals with this vaccine, has claimed that this vaccine has proved to provide “superior” protection against the Covid-19 virus. The vaccine has undergone trial in mice and hamsters who were immunised with a single dose of this vaccine and the results of which were seen to be “providing viral clearance in both lower and upper airways in all these animal models”, the company said.
Bharat Biotech, which had applied for Phase I and Phase II of clinical trials in
India, has received the goahead for Phase I clinical trial of this vaccine by the Drug Controller General of India and is soon likely to start its Phase I clinical trials in humans.
The company is likely to recruit 75 individuals on whom this vaccine would be tried and a report on the study of Phase I trials would be provided to the Drug Controller General of India after which, if successful, it would undergo further trials.