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Thursday, May 8, 2025

Afraid of needles? China using inhalable COVID-19 vaccine 

by

924 days ago
20221026
In this photo taken from video released by Shanghai Media Group, a medical worker hands over an aerosolised COVID vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics Inc. in Shanghai on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering the inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (Shanghai Media Group via AP)

In this photo taken from video released by Shanghai Media Group, a medical worker hands over an aerosolised COVID vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics Inc. in Shanghai on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering the inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (Shanghai Media Group via AP)

The Chi­nese city of Shang­hai start­ed ad­min­is­ter­ing an in­hal­able COVID-19 vac­cine on Wednes­day in what ap­pears to be a world first.

The vac­cine, a mist that is sucked in through the mouth, is be­ing of­fered for free as a boost­er dose for pre­vi­ous­ly vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to an an­nounce­ment on an of­fi­cial city so­cial me­dia ac­count.

Sci­en­tists hope that such “nee­dle-free” vac­cines will make vac­ci­na­tion more ac­ces­si­ble in coun­tries with frag­ile health sys­tems be­cause they are eas­i­er to ad­min­is­ter. They al­so may per­suade peo­ple who don’t like get­ting a shot in the arm to get in­oc­u­lat­ed.

Chi­na wants more peo­ple to get boost­er shots be­fore it re­lax­es strict pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions that are hold­ing back the econ­o­my and are in­creas­ing­ly out of sync with the rest of the world. As of mid-Oc­to­ber, 90% of Chi­nese were ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed and 57% had re­ceived a boost­er shot.

In this photo taken from video released by Shanghai Media Group, a medical worker aerosolises COVID vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics Inc. in Shanghai on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering the inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (Shanghai Media Group via AP)

In this photo taken from video released by Shanghai Media Group, a medical worker aerosolises COVID vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics Inc. in Shanghai on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering the inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (Shanghai Media Group via AP)

A video post­ed by an on­line Chi­nese state me­dia out­let showed peo­ple at a com­mu­ni­ty health cen­tre stick­ing the short noz­zle of a translu­cent white cup in­to their mouths. The ac­com­pa­ny­ing text said that af­ter slow­ly in­hal­ing, peo­ple hold their breath for five sec­onds, with the en­tire pro­ce­dure com­plet­ed in 20 sec­onds.

“It was like drink­ing a cup of milk tea,” one Shang­hai res­i­dent said in the video. “When I breathed it in, it tast­ed a bit sweet.”

The ef­fec­tive­ness of non-nee­dle vac­cines has not been ful­ly ex­plored. Chi­nese reg­u­la­tors ap­proved the in­hal­able one in Sep­tem­ber, but on­ly as a boost­er shot af­ter stud­ies showed it trig­gered an im­mune sys­tem re­sponse in peo­ple who had pre­vi­ous­ly re­ceived two shots of a dif­fer­ent Chi­nese vac­cine.

A vac­cine tak­en as mist could fend off the virus be­fore it reach­es the rest of the res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem, though that would de­pend in part on the size of the droplets, one ex­pert said.

Larg­er droplets would train de­fens­es in parts of the mouth and throat, while small­er ones would trav­el fur­ther in­to the body, said Dr. Vi­nee­ta Bal, an im­mu­nol­o­gist in In­dia.

An employee works on the production of the recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine (adenovirus Type 5 vector or Convidecia) for the Chinese vaccine developer CanSino Biologics Inc. (CanSinoBio) at Thousand Oaks Biopharmaceutical in Haimen in eastern China's Jiangsu province on Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable version of the CanSino COVID-19 vaccine called Convidecia Air on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022, in what appears to be a world first. (Chinatopix Via AP)

An employee works on the production of the recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine (adenovirus Type 5 vector or Convidecia) for the Chinese vaccine developer CanSino Biologics Inc. (CanSinoBio) at Thousand Oaks Biopharmaceutical in Haimen in eastern China's Jiangsu province on Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable version of the CanSino COVID-19 vaccine called Convidecia Air on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022, in what appears to be a world first. (Chinatopix Via AP)

The in­hal­able vac­cine was de­vel­oped by Chi­nese bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny CanSi­no Bi­o­log­ics Inc. as an aerosol ver­sion of the com­pa­ny’s one-shot ade­n­ovirus vac­cine, which us­es a rel­a­tive­ly harm­less cold virus.

The tra­di­tion­al one-shot vac­cine has been ap­proved for use in more than 10 mar­kets in­clud­ing Chi­na, Hun­gary, Pak­istan, Malaysia, Ar­genti­na and Mex­i­co. The in­haled ver­sion has re­ceived a go-ahead for clin­i­cal tri­als in Malaysia, a Malaysian me­dia re­port said last month.

Reg­u­la­tors in In­dia have ap­proved a nasal vac­cine, an­oth­er nee­dle-free ap­proach, but it has yet to be rolled out. The vac­cine, de­vel­oped in the U.S. and li­censed to In­di­an vac­cine mak­er Bharat Biotech, is squirt­ed in the nose.

About a dozen nasal vac­cines are be­ing test­ed glob­al­ly, ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Women wearing face masks wait in line to get their routine COVID-19 throat swab tests at a coronavirus testing site in Beijing, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Women wearing face masks wait in line to get their routine COVID-19 throat swab tests at a coronavirus testing site in Beijing, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Chi­na has re­lied on do­mes­ti­cal­ly de­vel­oped vac­cines, pri­mar­i­ly two in­ac­ti­vat­ed vac­cines that have proven ef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing death and se­ri­ous dis­ease but less so than the Pfiz­er and Mod­er­na vac­cines at stop­ping the spread of the dis­ease.

Chi­nese au­thor­i­ties al­so have not man­dat­ed vac­ci­na­tion — en­ter­ing an of­fice build­ing or oth­er pub­lic places re­quires a neg­a­tive COVID-19 test, not proof of vac­ci­na­tion. And the coun­try’s strict “ze­ro-COVID” ap­proach means that on­ly a small pro­por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion has been in­fect­ed and built im­mu­ni­ty that way, com­pared to oth­er places.

A worker wearing a face mask stands outside an exit from a subway station to stop visitors from going to the Universal Studios Beijing resort, which according to a notice was closed for epidemic control, in Beijing, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A worker wearing a face mask stands outside an exit from a subway station to stop visitors from going to the Universal Studios Beijing resort, which according to a notice was closed for epidemic control, in Beijing, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

As a re­sult, it’s un­clear how wide­ly COVID-19 would spread if re­stric­tions were lift­ed. The rul­ing Com­mu­nist Par­ty has so far shown no sign of eas­ing the “ze­ro-COVID” pol­i­cy, mov­ing quick­ly to re­strict trav­el and im­pose lock­downs when even just a few cas­es are dis­cov­ered.

Au­thor­i­ties on Wednes­day or­dered the lock­down of 900,000 peo­ple in Wuhan, the city where the virus was first de­tect­ed in late 2019, for at least five days. In re­mote Qing­hai province, the ur­ban dis­tricts of Xin­ing city have been locked down since last Fri­day.

In Bei­jing, Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios said it would close its ho­tels and at­trac­tions “to com­ply with pan­dem­ic pre­ven­tion and con­trol.” The city of more than 21 mil­lion peo­ple re­port­ed 19 new cas­es in the lat­est 24-hour pe­ri­od. —BEI­JING (AP)

___

Sto­ry by KEN MORIT­SUGU | As­so­ci­at­ed Press.
As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Anirud­dha Ghos­al in New Del­hi, and video pro­duc­er Olivia Zhang in Bei­jing, con­tributed to this re­port.

COVID-19HealthCovid vaccinesChina


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