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Vaccines are typically injected into an arm muscle, including those recently developed against SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. Yet coronaviruses first infect the mucous membranes in our respiratory tract, in the nose, mouth, throat and lungs. Administering vaccines intranasally, to target those frontline areas, could allow us to respond to infection faster. Nasal vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have already been developed in India and China, but researchers are now testing a new intranasal live-attenuated vaccine, containing a modified virus. Tests in hamsters found it highly effective: very few SARS-CoV-2 particles (in brown) penetrated their nasal mucous membranes after double vaccination with the intranasal vaccine (top left) or even a combination of one intranasal dose with an existing mRNA vaccine (bottom left), compared to poor results after intramuscular vaccination only (right-hand panels). Following up these encouraging results with safety and efficacy trials in humans could provide new options for future vaccination.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image adapted from work by Geraldine Nouailles and Julia M. Adler, and colleagues
• Department of Infectious Diseases, Respiratory Medicine and Critical Care, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Immunology, April 2023