China’s government approved the world’s first inhaled vaccine against COVID-19, the vaccine’s maker Cansino Biologics announced on Sunday. The vaccine, called Convidecia Air, changes the liquid form of the vaccine into an aerosol using a nebuilzer. The vaccine can then be inhaled through the mouth using the nebulizer machine. The needle-free vaccine “can effectively induce comprehensive immune protection in response to SARS-CoV-2 after just one breath,” Cansino said in a statement.
The science appears to back Cansino’s claims. In July, Chinese scientists published a pre-print study showing that people who received one booster dose of Cansino’s inhaled vaccine after two doses of the inactivated jab from Chinese maker Sinovac developed more antibodies than people who received three Sinovac shots. Four weeks after receiving the inhaled booster, 92.5% of people had developed neutralizing antibodies for Omicron.
Those who got three doses on Sinovac’s jab did not demonstrate any neutralizing antibodies for Omicron, either four weeks or six months after getting a booster. Cansino’s stock price jumped 8% in Hong Kong on Monday. Prominent scientists like Scripps Research executive vice president Eric Topol have called on the U.S. government to accelerate efforts to develop inhaled and nasal spray vaccines, believing that they may better target Omicron infections than injected jabs.