Intra-nasal Covid-19 vaccines will be far easier to deliver: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

"Indeed intra-nasal vaccines will be far easier to deliver than intra muscular injections n Asha workers can be trained to deliver it at mass scale unlike IM injections which will need nurses, doctors n MBBS students which is a challenge," Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw tweeted.

Scientists across the globe are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, which has killed over 1.1 million people. Several dozen vaccine candidates are currently being tested in clinical trials.

Earlier, in an interview to Mint, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said that she is hopeful that Covid-19 vaccine will be in India by June. "I expect that by January, some of the other vaccines could be approved like AstraZeneca’s or one of our own Indian vaccines like the one by Bharat Biotech. If we finish the clinical trials in the next 2-3 months, even those may be approved by January-February. So I would expect that in Q1FY22 we should have vaccines available in India and other parts of the world," said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

Talking about distribution of vaccines in India, Shaw said it will be a daunting challenge delivering the vaccine to India’s over 1.2 billion population. She further added That the country is also fortunate that it has the world's largest vaccine capacity.

Meanwhile, scientists are hoping to generate superior immune responses with inhaled vaccines that directly target the airway cells the virus invades. Vaccines that are sprayed into the nose or inhaled may hold other practical benefits. They don’t require needles, may not need to be stored and shipped at low temperatures and can reduce the need for health workers to administer them. Inhaled vaccine makers are counting on some of the unique features of the lungs, nose and throat, which are lined with mucosa.