Delivering Covid vaccines as a nasal spray may work better
The key to suppressing Covid-9 could be in delivering the vaccine as a nasal spray or supplementing it with a nasal spray, scientists say.
Coronavirus
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Exclusive: AstraZeneca could be more effective against Covid-19 — especially the Delta variant — if delivered as a nasal spray rather than as a needle, scientists say.
Australia’s CSIRO tested the vaccine as a nasal spray in animals and, in a promising development, found it completely sterilised the virus.
One of the reasons Delta is spreading so quickly is that many people given a needle vaccination against Covid can still catch it and spread it, even though they don’t get seriously ill.
Dr Rob Grenfell, the director of health and biosecurity at the CSIRO, said the organisation’s nasal spray tests in animals stopped the transmission.
“In our animal model it actually led to sterility in the animal, that is there’s no virus detectable by PCR which meant that you’re not infectious, so that was actually a really exciting revelation,” he said.
The problem with using a needle to vaccinate against the virus that causes Covid-19, he said, was that it was a respiratory bug that attached to receptors in nasal cells to enter the body.
“If we were to do this on the nasal cells, we’d be actually creating the immunity on the surface of the nasal cells,” he said.
Researchers at the Imperial College in London have already begun trialling an AstraZeneca nasal spray in humans in England, but no results are available yet.
Meanwhile Australian researchers are developing multiple nasal sprays that can be used as a compliment to vaccination to stop Covid-19 from spreading.
The idea is that everyone would still get a needle vaccination but supplement it with a nasal spray for added protection when they go to mass gatherings or aeroplanes.
One group has repurposed the anti-blood clotting drug heparin, which is already approved for human use, into a Covid nasal spray. It has an anti-viral effect they believe will work against any Covid variant.
It would theoretically stop the virus entering the body through the nasal cells.
“The heparin we spray into the nose effectively coats the SARS Co-V-2 virus, it can actually wrap around the virus, and it’s independent of variations in the virus so if it’s the Alpha or the Beta or the Delta,” Monash university researcher Professor Michelle McIntosh said.
Professor McIntosh is among a team including researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, University of Melbourne, St Vincent’s Hospital, Northern Health, Monash University and the CSIRO.
They need $5 million to trial the spray in humans, and could be in a position to start producing it within six months.
“It could have a huge role if one person was infected and everyone in the household was using a nasal spray of heparin then potentially you could really stop the spread within the household,” Professor McIntosh said.
Melbourne-based pharmaceutical company Starpharma’s nasal spray Viraleze, which received $1 million in funding from our taxpayer-funded Medical Research Future Fund, is already on sale in Europe.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has not yet approved it for use here.
This spray contains the antiviral SPL7013 which is currently used to block some bacterial infections. It is also used in coated condoms.
No human trials have been conducted to prove it blocks the virus that causes Covid but laboratory tests in viral cultures show it deactivates it.
Starpharma CEO Dr Jackie Fairley said the company had applied to the Therapeutic Goods Administration to sell it here but was still waiting for approval.
It would be available over the counter and bottles containing 40 doses sell for 16 euros ($A25) in Europe.
Another Covid-19 busting nasal spray being developed by Australian company ENA entered human clinical trials recently.
All the nasal sprays would be used three to four times a day during virus outbreaks, on long haul travel and by frontline health and quarantine workers to provide immediate protection by blocking the virus entering the body through the nose.
NASAL SPRAYS AGAINST COVID-19
AstraZeneca vaccine
A nasal spray formulation of the vaccine is being trialled in humans by researchers at Imperial College London. Studies in animals showed it completely sterilised the Covid-19 virus in animals which meant they were not infectious
Starpharma
The Australian developed Viraleze anti-viral nasal spray is already being sold in Europe. The Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia is still evaluating it. Laboratory studies show it is 99.9 per cent effective at inactivating the virus that causes Covid-19 but there are no human clinical trials that prove this.
Heparin nasal spray
Melbourne researchers are seeking $5 million for human clinical trials of an old anti-blood clotting drug, which is already approved for human use, as an anti-viral against Covid-19. The concept is that the spray will prevent the virus from locking onto receptors in the nose preventing it from entering the body.
ENA Respiratory
Trials in ferrets showed this nasal spray was 96 per cent effective at preventing the replication of the virus that causes COVID-19 in the nose. Human clinical trials began in Sydney last month. The spay works by engaging the body’s innate immune system which works within hours to neutralise a virus unlike a vaccine which can take weeks to work.
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