Nasal sprays will be essential to thwart variants, COVID-19 research confirms

Those widely available COVID-19 vaccinations keeping the majority of the population free from serious illness will not be enough to stop the spread of the virus and its variants, new University of Virginia collaborative research indicates.

Just as science has begun to suspect, the shots will need a boost from a nasal spray.

“Our data suggest that an intranasal vaccine-boosting strategy will be critical to protect people against emerging variants of concern,” said Jie Sun, the Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of Medicine at UVA. Sun serves in the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine and associate directs the University’s Carter Immunology Center.

Published Tuesday in the journal Science Immunology, Sun and colleagues’ research fully documents for the first time the underperforming immune response in the airways of people with COVID-19 vaccinations compared to those with natural infection.

The leading vaccines in public use are called “mRNA vaccines” because they take inspiration from messenger ribonucleic acid, the delivery system that facilitates biological replication. But the mRNA in the vaccines is not derived from a live virus. Instead, the molecule is synthesized in a lab to resemble an invader, enough so that the body can recognize the real thing in the future. However, with these vaccines, “the message” now appears to be largely confined to the blood.

Bloodstreams get strongly ramped up by the vaccine, while the mucosal linings experience moderate or little neutralizing antibody response, the study found.

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