WHO praises India's first COVID-19 nasal vaccine; calls it the 'first line of defence'

A day after Bharat Biotech got emergency use authorisation from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for the Intranasal Covid-19 vaccine, WHO lauded the development and said it could help to bring the pandemic under control. Recently, both India and China developed their homegrown nasal vaccines. In the first, China launched its inhalable Covid vaccine, Convidecia Air on Sunday. The vaccine is made by CanSino Biologics and administered through a nebuliser. On the other hand, New Delhi approved a nasally-administered vaccine for emergencies on Tuesday. Although the World Health Organisation welcomed the development but added it needs to analyse the data in order to approve globally.

WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan, while addressing a press conference on Wednesday, noted that the nasal sprays can generate "the first line of defence at where the virus enters and causes a lot of damage." He said the World health agency would assess the data and then encourage its use at the global level. "Linking both the mucosal vaccine with an injectable vaccine allows you to give full protection. Nasal vaccines offer us a much stronger prospect for control of COVID19 in the long run, but that remains to be seen...We don't have access to that data yet. But we do look forward to that and we encourage the kind of work that develops new innovative vaccines," he said.

The development has also been welcomed by Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on Covid-19. She also voiced analysing the data before granting approval to the whole world. "We look forward to seeing the data to see how this could be incorporated into the response for Covid-19," Kerkhove said.

One person died of COVID every 44 seconds: WHO Chief

Meanwhile, in another presser, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus underscored that cases of the lethal virus have been declining rapidly but noted that death related to it was still prevalent in several countries. According to the WHO chief, at least one people die of the Coronavirus every 44 seconds and added most of the deaths could be avoidable. "It’s great that COVID19 vaccination coverage of high-priority groups is improving, but still 1/3 of the world’s population remains unvaccinated, including 2/3 of health workers and 3/4 of older adults in low-income countries. Vaccine equity is the best way to drive a sustainable recovery," he noted. 

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