China’s largest city, Shanghai, on Wednesday began administering an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine in what appears to be a world first.
The vaccine, a mist that is sucked out of the mouth, is presented as a booster dose for others who are already vaccinated, according to an announcement posted on the city’s official social media account.
Needle-free vaccines can convince others who don’t like to get vaccinated to get vaccinated, as well as expand vaccination in poor countries because they are less difficult to administer.
China needs more people to get booster shots before easing tight pandemic restrictions that are holding back the economy and out of sync with the rest of the world. By mid-October, 90% of Chinese were fully vaccinated and 57% had gained a booster shot.
A video posted through Chinese state media online showed others at an online fitness center stuffing the short tip of a translucent white cup into their mouths. The attached text states that after inhaling slowly, a man held his breath for five seconds, with the entire procedure ending in 20 seconds.
“It’s like drinking a cup of milk tea,” a Shanghai resident said in the video. “When I breathed it, it tasted a little sweet. “
The effectiveness of non-injected vaccines has not been fully explored. Chinese regulators approved the inhalable vaccine in September, but only as a booster after studies showed it triggered an immune formula reaction in other people who had already received two shots of another Chinese vaccine. .
An orally administered vaccine can defend against the coronavirus before it reaches the rest of the respiratory system, depending in part on the length of the vaccine droplets, one expert said.
Larger droplets would protect parts of the mouth and throat, while smaller droplets would travel deeper into the body, said Dr. Vineeta Bal, an immunologist in India.
Chinese regulators approved the vaccine for use as a booster in September. It was developed through Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics as an aerosol edition of the company’s single-injection adenoviral vaccine, which uses an innocent bloodless virus.
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4:18 a. m. , October 26, 2022 An earlier edition of this story said the inhalable vaccine had completed clinical trials in several countries. It was given the green light for clinical trials in Malaysia, according to a media report.
The classic single-shot vaccine has been approved for use in 10 markets, China, Hungary, Pakistan, Malaysia, Argentina and Mexico. The inhaled edition has been given the green light for clinical trials in Malaysia, according to a Malaysian media report last month. .
Regulators in India approved a nasal vaccine, a needle-free approach, but it has yet to be rolled out. The vaccine, developed in the United States and licensed by Indian vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech, is injected into the nose.
According to the World Health Organization, a dozen nasal vaccines are being injected around the world lately.
China has relied on locally developed vaccines, basically two inactivated vaccines that have been shown to be effective in preventing death and serious illness, but less effective than the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in preventing the spread of the disease.
The Chinese government has also not imposed vaccination; Entering a building or other public requires a negative COVID-19 test, not evidence of vaccination. And the country’s strict “zero COVID” technique means that only a small proportion of the population has become inflamed and has developed immunity in this way, compared to other selling options.
As a result, it is unclear how far the coronavirus would spread if the restrictions were lifted. So far, the ruling Communist Party has shown no signs of softening its zero-tolerance policy, acting temporarily to limit and impose lockdowns even when some cases are discovered. .
On Wednesday, authorities ordered the lockdown of another 900,000 people in Wuhan, the city where the virus was first detected in late 2019, for at least five days. In remote Qinghai province, urban districts in Xining City have been closed since Friday.
In Beijing, Universal Studios said it would close its hotels and attractions “to comply with the prevention and control of the pandemic. “The capital of more than 21 million people reported 19 new cases in the past 24 hours.
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