China is starting clinical trials with an inhaled Covid vaccine

CanSino Biologics, China, will begin clinical trials next week for a Covid-19 vaccine that is given by inhalation, Xuefeng Yu, co-founder and CEO of CNBC, told CNBC on Sunday.

The efficacy rates for Covid vaccines in China have been shown to be lower than those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Earlier this month, the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control publicly acknowledged that Chinese vaccines “do not have very high protection rates” and that they were thinking of giving people different Covid photos to increase the vaccine’s effectiveness.

Yu told CNBC that an inhaled vaccine could be more effective than injected vaccines, given that the coronavirus enters the human body through the airways.

CanSinoBIO is developing the inhalation vaccine with the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology. To be clear, the company’s Adenovirus type 5 Vector vaccine – or Ad5-nCoV – given by injection has already been approved for use in China and several other countries.

People who received Covid-19 gunfire at a temporary vaccination site on April 15, 2021 in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

Liu Ranyang | China News Service | Getty Images

Speaking to CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan Province, Yu, Yu explained that in theory, an inhaled vaccine could provide additional protection by activating antibodies or T cells – white blood cells that are vital to the immune system. in the respiratory tract.

If that layer of protection fails and the virus moves deeper into the body, other parts of the immune system could fight the Covid virus, Yu added.

“So add more layers – it makes sense, doesn’t it? So that’s why we’re going down the mucous membrane,” he said.

The CEO said the company used the same concept to develop an inhalation vaccine for tuberculosis or TB. Studies in Canada have shown that the inhaled dose of the TB vaccine needed to provide protection is “much, much lower than the actual injection,” he said.

Increasing the effectiveness of the vaccine

The single-dose Covid vaccine CanSinoBIO has been approved for use in several countries, including China, Pakistan, Mexico and Hungary.

The company said that intermediate data from third-phase clinical trials abroad showed that its vaccine was 68.83% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 disease two weeks after an injection, while the rate dropped to 65. 28% after four weeks, Reuters reported.

In comparison, the updated data showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 91% effective in preventing infection, while Moderna said its vaccine was more than 90% effective six months after the second shot.

Yu said CanSinoBIO was considering adding a booster vaccine six months after the first injection, which was able to improve the coronavirus immune response.

“This also indicates that our vaccine could be stimulated – whether it is mixed with others or we make it our own, I think a scientific study is needed. .

Reuters reported on Monday that Chinese researchers were testing a mixture of Covid vaccines developed by CanSinoBIO and a Chongqing Zhifei biological products unit. The ongoing trial in the eastern city of Nanjing is expected to involve 120 participants, the report said.

China was the first country to report cases of Covid-19 at the end of 2019 and appears to have largely contained the outbreak. The country has said it aims to vaccinate 40 percent of its population by June.

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