A COVID-19 nasal spray vaccine has applied for emergency use to China's National Medical Products Administration, the prominent Chinese vaccine developer, Chen Wei, revealed on Thursday.
The nasal spray vaccine, jointly developed by Chen's team and the Chinese biotech company, CanSino Biologics Inc, only requires one-fifth of the amount of the injectable adenovirus vector COVID-19 vaccine and doesn't need cold-chain storage and transport, Chen introduced in a speech delivered at the Pujiang Innovation Forum in Shanghai on Thursday.
The current injectable COVID-19 vaccine is 0.5 milliliter per dose, said Shanghai-based vaccine expert, Tao Lina. If Chen's nasal spray vaccine can achieve the same protective effect with only a 0.1 milliliter dose, "that means it has higher immune efficiency," Tao said.
The higher efficiency may come from the way the vaccine enters body, Tao said. It is directly inhaled through the nose, which mimics the natural infection of the respiratory virus COVID-19, and then it forms a mucosal immunity, he explained.