Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, thinks we will likely need vaccines that are administered differently if we want to prevent Covid infections. She and colleagues last week published a paper in Science on pre-clinical study of an intranasally administered vaccine.
“Early data from Israel is showing that the third dose, even though it provides a very effective protection, it also does wane,” Iwasaki said. “So it’s not like the third dose will fix antibody response forever. That’s kind of hard to ask any vaccine to do that.”
Developing a vaccine that aims to arm the mucosal tissues of the upper respiratory tract with immune protection would stop SARS-2 at its point of entry, not after it is rampaging through our cells. “It’s really like putting the guard outside the door as opposed to inside the door,” she said.