Covid-19: India to roll out world's first intra-nasal vaccine as booster today

The government of India has approved a nasal vaccine and it will be included in vaccination programmes from today, official sources have said to ANI.

It will be used as a heterologous booster and will be first available in private hospitals.

The vaccine will also be displayed on the Cowin app from today

Earlier, vaccine producer Bharat Biotech International said that BBV154 (intranasal vaccine) has proven to be safe, well-tolerated, and immunogenic in subjects in controlled clinical trials.

This vaccine candidate was evaluated earlier in phase I and II clinical trials with successful results. BBV154 has been specifically formulated to allow intranasal delivery. In addition, the nasal delivery system has been designed and developed to be cost-effective in low and middle-income countries.

BBV154 was developed in partnership with Washington University St Louis, which had designed and developed the recombinant adenoviral vectored constructs and evaluated them in preclinical studies for efficacy. Product development related to preclinical safety evaluation, large-scale manufacturing scale-up, formulation, and delivery device development, including human clinical trials, were conducted by Bharat Biotech. The Government of India partly funded product development and clinical trials through the Department of Biotechnology's Covid Suraksha programme.

Two separate and simultaneous clinical trials were conducted to evaluate BBV154 as a primary dose (2-dose) schedule; and a heterologous booster dose for subjects who have previously received 2 doses of the two commonly administered Covid-19 vaccines in India.

(With inputs from ANI)

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