Kanpur has been chosen as the location for the Phase 2 trials for India’s first intranasal vaccine against Covid-19 being developed by Bharat Biotech in partnership with Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis. The trials are being conducted at the Prakhar hospital.

A total of over 30 participants including doctors, their family members and other healthcare providers have been administered the first dose of the vaccine.

The second set of 20 volunteers will be administered this vaccine over the next few days. The second dose of the vaccine will be administered after 28 days to the volunteers. The trial is now focused on adults only.

The principal investigator for the intranasal Covid vaccine, Dr J.S. Kushwaha said that the doses of the vaccine administered to healthy volunteers in this phase of the trial have been well tolerated and no serious adverse events have been reported. All the volunteers are under observation.

Dr Kushwaha, who administered the vaccine to the volunteers, said, "Two drops of the intranasal vaccine were put into each nostril of a volunteer. After a gap of five minutes, two more drops were administered in the same fashion. This way a total of eight vaccine drops was administered to each person. The volunteer was then observed for any reaction for over an hour before being allowed to go home."

All those who have received the intranasal vaccine have been advised to report after 28 days and the same will be repeated.

An intranasal vaccine will not only be simple to administer but also reduce the use of medical consumables such as needles and syringes, thereby bringing down the cost of the vaccine.

"The intranasal vaccine is dropped into the nostril of a person and it gradually slips into the respiratory tract. The dosage of this vaccine is repeated after 28 days just like Covaxin, which is administered twice in the same period. The vaccine is designed to neutralise the virus in the nostril itself and prevent it from penetrating deep down into the respiratory tract," he said.

He also said that before the administration of the intranasal vaccine the second time, saliva and blood samples will be collected for studying immunogenicity.

There are seven intranasal Covid-19 vaccines under clinical trial across the world. Bharat Biotech is one of them. The other nasal vaccines under trial are by Oxford University, Altimmune, University of Hong Kong, Meissa Vaccines, Codagenix and Cuba's Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.