CHEARS

China has approved for trials its first nasal spray vaccine to combat the novel coronavirus that has claimed over 904,000 lives and infected more than 27 million people globally, official media reports. China's only nasal spray vaccine against the coronavirus is expected to start phase I clinical trials in November, and it is recruiting 100 volunteers. China has approved for trials its first nasal spray vaccine to combat the novel coronavirus that has claimed over 904,000 lives and infected more than 27 million people globally, official media reported. The vaccine is a collaborative mission between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland that involves researchers from the University of Hong Kong, Xiamen University, and Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy. Microbiologist from the University of Hong Kong, Yuen Kwok-yung, said the vaccine stimulates the natural infection pathway of respiratory viruses to activate the immune response. Beijing-based immunologist told the daily that compared with injections, a nasal spray vaccination is easier to administer and would also be easy to mass-produce and distribute as it adopts the mature influenza vaccine production technology. The nasal spray vaccine uses live attenuated influenza vaccine; the other four technical routes China is using to develop the coronavirus vaccines are inactivated vaccines, adenoviral vector-based vaccines, and DNA and mRNA vaccines. The inactivated vaccine is estimated to be the earliest to be in the market, the report said. The immunologist said the new vaccine may not cause systemic side effects, but side effects may occur in the respiratory system such as asthma and shortness of breath.The novel coronavirus, which originated from China''s Wuhan city in December last year, has claimed 904,485 lives and infected 27,902,002 globally. The US is the worst affected country with 190,887 deaths and 6,363,729 infections, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.