Linnea Hentschel Chemistry Honors
2/8/22 Current Event 1
Mandavilli, Apoorva. “The Covid Vaccine We Need Now May Not Be a Shot.” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/health/covid-vaccine-nasal.html. Accessed 8 February 2022.
In this article from the New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli describes to readers the potential that nasal vaccines have to be better at protecting against COVID-19 and its variants than injection vaccines. Since COVID-19 is an airborne virus, nasal vaccines are effective because they protect the airways that it would first enter the body through. In addition, nasal vaccines are a great solution to the shortage of materials needed to administer injections like needles and syringes, and is probably more appealing to people than injections due to the decreased pain factor. These qualities make nasal vaccines very attractive to produce, and there are many companies making headway on creating them. However, one Indian company called Bharat Biotech is leading the way. They have started testing their product on people in India who have already been fully vaccinated. Injection vaccines aren’t as direct in comparison to nasal vaccines. Injections create antibodies in your blood stream, but not much blood reaches your nose. A nasal vaccine would coat the interior of your nose, mouth and throat, providing those areas with protection. This is important because the airways is where the coronavirus enters and leaves the body. As a result, person to person spread of the virus may significantly decrease and reduce the infection rate moreso than injection vaccines. Professionals see promise in the nasal vaccine because it has been shown to protect animals like monkeys and mice from COVID. Doctors plan on using nasal vaccines as a type of booster to build off of vaccine immunity. The nasal vaccine is more flexible than injection vaccines, providing better protection from new variants through the creation of IgA antibodies, as opposed to IgG antibodies produced by injection vaccines. IgA antibodies stick around for longer and are suited for the nose and throat regions, whereas IgG antibodies circulate in the blood which rarely make it to the nose area, where the coronavirus enters the body. The IgA antibodies produced in nasal vaccines are important because they have been shown to be an integral part of preventing breakthrough infections. The science of nasal vaccines is very particular, because the mucosal antibody levels can fluctuate from time to time. It is common for saliva to enter the mouth and as a result dilute the levels of antibodies. In addition, no one is sure how well nasal vaccines really protect one from contracting the coronavirus, and how long the immunity lasts. This causes hesitation in the US in producing nasal vaccines, however many forgein countries are.
This article informs readers of new ways that they might possibly be able to protect themselves against the coronavirus. As the pandemic continues, it is important for everyone to have access to information that keeps them up to date on new findings. Additionally, if many readers find the idea of a nasal vaccine appealing, they can pressure US agencies to begin looking into developing their own, or purchasing some from other countries to implement here.
I thought this article was well written in an engaging manner, and contained a lot of helpful information for the reader. The author included details that I didn’t know about before, such as which anti-bodies were better at preventing COVID infection. However, I wish the author included a bit more of a description on how test trials of nasal vaccines on humans in India were going to give the reader a sense of how well the new vaccine was being received by the public. I think this article could be improved if author added a professional opinion on whether or not nasal vaccines will become widely available in the US and included a perspective on public nasal vaccination opinions in India where it is being produced.
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