Covid: Bharat Biotech's nasal vaccine as booster dose soon, likely to be available on Cowin from next week

The Centre will soon use Bharat Biotech's nasal vaccine - iNCOVACC - as a booster dose for those above 18 years of age. The vaccine manufacturer has applied for permissions, which are in the final stage.

The nasal vaccine could also be introduced on the COWIN platform as early as next week. With this, India will have more options for third or precaution dose in the country.  

Last month, Bharat Biotech, the manufacturer of Covaxin, got approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) for the use of the heterologous booster doses of iNCOVACC. 

The nasal vaccine is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein. This vaccine candidate was evaluated in clinical trials at phases I, II, and III, with positive results.

The nasal delivery system was created to be cost-effective in low- and middle-income countries. The nasal vaccine has been created in collaboration with Washington University in St. Louis, which designed and developed the recombinant adenoviral vectored construct and tested its efficacy in preclinical studies.

The Ministry of Science, in a statement on December 1, said that this vaccine has the double benefit of enabling faster development of variant-specific vaccines and easy nasal delivery that enables mass immunization to protect from emerging variants of concern. It promises to become an important tool in mass vaccinations during pandemics and endemics.