Meissa Vaccines’ intranasal vaccine for COVID-19 equals the protection afforded by existing vaccines in the same class of subjects after only a single dose, according to data presented this week at the American Society of Virology annual meeting. The caveat is that the data is from preclinical, non-human primate studies.
The data – also published on bioRxiv – indicates that the MV-014-212 vaccine-induced mucosal (nasal IgA) antibodies in the upper respiratory tract and systemic (serum neutralizing and binding IgG antibodies) in African green monkeys and provided protection when challenged by the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus. In vitro, the serum antibodies were also able to neutralize the Alpha (UK) and Beta (South African) viral variants.
This is one of a handful of COVID-19 intranasal vaccines in development globally. According to the World Health Organization’s vaccine tracker, as of July 13, of the 108 vaccines in clinical trials only 2 are live attenuated viruses. Eight are nasal vaccines. One of those, AdCOVID by Altimmune, was recently discontinued. Only 3 of the remaining 7 are intranasal replicating vaccines.
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