COVID-19 intranasal vaccines: current progress, advantages, prospects, and challenges

ABSTRACT

Multiple vaccines have recently been developed, and almost all the countries are presently vaccinating their population to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the COVID-19 vaccines in use are administered via intramuscular (IM) injection, eliciting protective humor and cellular immunity. COVID-19 intranasal (IN) vaccines are also being developed that have shown promising ability to induce a significant amount of antibody-mediated immune response and a robust cell-mediated immunity as well as hold the added ability to stimulate protective mucosal immunity along with the additional advantage of the ease of administration as compared to IM injected vaccines. By inducing secretory IgA antibody responses specifically in the nasal compartment, the intranasal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine can prevent virus infection, replication, shedding, and disease development, as well as possibly limits virus transmission. This article highlights the current progress, advantages, prospects, and challenges in developing intranasal COVID-19 vaccines for countering the ongoing pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• SARS-CoV-2
• intranasal vaccine
• mucosal immunity

Acknowledgements

All the authors acknowledge and thank their respective Institutes and Universities.

Author contributions

All the authors contributed significantly in this manuscript. KD and MD conceptualized the manuscript. KD wrote the first draft with input from MD. Authors RT, TBE, SM, AAR, SA, ZAA, and AAM reviewed and updated the manuscript. All authors contributed to revisions and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that there exist no commercial or financial relationships that could, in any way, lead to a potential conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.