This is really interesting. Obviously evidence in mice is a long way away from demonstrated safety & efficacy in humans but I'll be curious to see where this one goes. If non-healthcare-professionals could be trained to administer a nasal vaccine (the way many non-hcps are able to carry and administer nasal naloxone in case of opiate overdose), it seems like it might potentially make vaccine adoption faster or more widespread.
They evaluated "the protective activity of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine encoding a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) in challenge studies with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and mice expressing the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor" https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31068-0
what the hell? that is quite odd, considering they have quotes from a professor at the university in the press release talking about mice as well... and it's not as though the press release is old or anything. shrug
Just to clarify — the vaccine uses as its backbone a type of adenovirus that typically infects chimpanzees, modified by the addition of pieces from SARS-CoV-2, but the experiments testing efficacy are performed in mice (specifically, a type of mice engineered to express humanized ACE2).
This vaccine has not been tested in chimpanzees (and actually such experiments would probably be a challenge, since they may have existing immunity to the backbone adenovirus).
(edit: parent comment initially mentioned experiments in chimpanzees rather than mice)
Are there broader frameworks for considering the risks/benefits of training/encouraging non-healthcare-providers to administer healthcare interventions?
In something like administering naloxone or I suppose CPR training, or even just educating people about the Heimlich Maneuver, it seems like a key contributor is that an immediate response by someone on the scene of an emergency is critical. The expectation is "if you happen to encounter such an emergency, you're now able to do something to help". What you're suggesting seems qualitatively different -- proactively sending out non-healthcare-providers to administer something to people before they get sick.
And yet, if we want to administer it to billions of people quickly, maybe that will be necessary. I also wonder if that will be the bottleneck, or if producing/distributing everywhere it will be.
Polio is available as an oral vaccine that used to be widespread in the west. I still remember demanding a sugarcube with every oral medication after getting one for the polio vaccination :)
The oral polio vaccine is a live vaccine. It is much more effective than the injected dead vaccine we now get in the west but it does occasionally cause polio outbreaks...
This week I made a Covid reporting site for all the regions in Bulgaria and started mentioning it in local Facebook groups.
It's staggering the number of expats here posting about Bill Gates, globalists, and a terrorist conspiracy to take over the planet by pretending Covid is a danger when it's not.
I don't think it's fear of needles or any logical aversion to something scary.
It's people who base their core beliefs on no evidence or tertiary sources, and therefore no evidence can be used to convince them otherwise.
I knew people like this are out there, but this has been like a gut punch.
You would think your logic makes sense in an anti-vaxxer, but there's many components to their ideology. I believe they are suspicious to anything that's mandatory. I presume this nasal vaccine will be mandatory (at least here in Chile government already determined when the vaccine arrives it will be obligation in risk groups) and would conform to their worldview of evil globalists killing the population for their kids to inherit an empty world.
This article on mucosal immunity provides helpful context for intranasal vaccines:
> Many microbes, including the coronavirus, enter the body through the mucosa — wet, squishy tissues that line the nose, mouth, lungs and digestive tract — triggering a unique immune response from cells and molecules there. Intramuscular vaccines generally do a poor job of eliciting this mucosal response, and must instead rely on immune cells mobilized from elsewhere in the body flocking to the site of infection.
> Given the potency and rapid spread of the coronavirus, some say it makes sense to develop vaccines for the airway as well as the more standard jabs. “Knowing how potent mucosal responses can be against a viral pathogen, it would be ideal to be thinking about mucosal vaccines,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University.
disclaimer: use distilled water or salt water or you could get a severe infection. You can buy this from the pharmacy, and HydraSense sells it pre-packaged in a spray format.
I've been using a nasal rinse since covid started, since it was mentioned by an infectious disesases professor (I forget his name now) that it starts in the nose and if you manage to swallow it into your stomach you'll be okay--it's only if you can't swallow the mucus caught up in your ENT system that it travels to the lungs.
Since I've always had sinus problems this is something I've had to do occasionally anyways.
edit: Michael Osterholm, a regents professor in epidemiology.
edit2: If you're not willing to do a nasal rinse, just gargle with water, I believe that should help as well.
It would help make your argument. I'd like to hear about nasal rinse making you more healthy. All I see is a Joe Rogan podcast, if that's what you are referring to?
Yeah, definitely use salt water. I will mention that in the main post. You can get a product like the following which has a water preparation which should be safe:
Most of these products have a salt packet (you’re right - you definitely should not use fresh water - it will very likely cause damage) but you still need to start with distilled or properly filtered water.
You're right, I should mention not to use fresh water, though many people do use fresh water in India without problems.
This product I've pointed out is pre-mixed ocean water, it comes with the water, not just the salt packet. It's not nasal irrigation, just a spray. It's pretty effective for my sinus infections I've been exceptionally prone to.
You can also boil the water--it doesn't need to be distilled. I'm afraid distilled water may leak ions, probably shouldn't use just distilled water though I've done no research on the topic.
Based on my knowledge (science and tradition combined), you gotta use salt water, ideally the water is from a natural source and has been boiled. I don't know about distilled water. Indians have been doing this for millennia, there is a safe way to do it.
edit: Do you have a source for the fresh water being an issue? Is this an empirical result or just some theory without a study? I'm genuinely interested, I can't find any study of this. It should be easy to do as well, you could study populations in India.
This is an interesting and well-done paper. It is, however, difficult to evaluate these mouse studies because, unlike human ACE2, mouse ACE2 doesn't facilitate SARS-CoV-2 cell entry. Therefore, they had to first deliver hACE2 either with an intranasal adenovirus injection, or use transgenic mice expressing hACE2 in a pattern that does not recapitulate its expression in humans.
It does seem like they do an especially good job at blocking infections in the respiratory system, but that's both the system that they primed for infection and where they provided the ChAd vaccine, so I don't know how fair of a comparison the intramuscular injection experiments are.
This is right out of Contagion! I don’t understand why even I feel like an injected vaccine vs. a nasal one seems so different. Injected vaccines seem a bit scary and unknown but I can totally get behind a nasal spray. Very weird.
29 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 50.9 ms ] threadThis vaccine has not been tested in chimpanzees (and actually such experiments would probably be a challenge, since they may have existing immunity to the backbone adenovirus).
(edit: parent comment initially mentioned experiments in chimpanzees rather than mice)
In something like administering naloxone or I suppose CPR training, or even just educating people about the Heimlich Maneuver, it seems like a key contributor is that an immediate response by someone on the scene of an emergency is critical. The expectation is "if you happen to encounter such an emergency, you're now able to do something to help". What you're suggesting seems qualitatively different -- proactively sending out non-healthcare-providers to administer something to people before they get sick.
And yet, if we want to administer it to billions of people quickly, maybe that will be necessary. I also wonder if that will be the bottleneck, or if producing/distributing everywhere it will be.
A large part of the movement IMO stems from the fact that subconsciously, humans tend to associate long sharp needles = pain = bad
That doesn't seem to stop anti-vaxxers: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-04/anti-v...
It's staggering the number of expats here posting about Bill Gates, globalists, and a terrorist conspiracy to take over the planet by pretending Covid is a danger when it's not.
I don't think it's fear of needles or any logical aversion to something scary.
It's people who base their core beliefs on no evidence or tertiary sources, and therefore no evidence can be used to convince them otherwise.
I knew people like this are out there, but this has been like a gut punch.
> Many microbes, including the coronavirus, enter the body through the mucosa — wet, squishy tissues that line the nose, mouth, lungs and digestive tract — triggering a unique immune response from cells and molecules there. Intramuscular vaccines generally do a poor job of eliciting this mucosal response, and must instead rely on immune cells mobilized from elsewhere in the body flocking to the site of infection.
> Given the potency and rapid spread of the coronavirus, some say it makes sense to develop vaccines for the airway as well as the more standard jabs. “Knowing how potent mucosal responses can be against a viral pathogen, it would be ideal to be thinking about mucosal vaccines,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/health/coronavirus-nasal-...
And here’s one of the first studies using a mouse model (AFAIK) for SARS-CoV-2 if you want to see how that works: https://rupress.org/jem/article/217/12/e20201241/151999/Mous...
I've been using a nasal rinse since covid started, since it was mentioned by an infectious disesases professor (I forget his name now) that it starts in the nose and if you manage to swallow it into your stomach you'll be okay--it's only if you can't swallow the mucus caught up in your ENT system that it travels to the lungs.
Since I've always had sinus problems this is something I've had to do occasionally anyways.
edit: Michael Osterholm, a regents professor in epidemiology.
edit2: If you're not willing to do a nasal rinse, just gargle with water, I believe that should help as well.
Sorry, this last little week has been pretty crazy, no time to check back here.
It's important not to do it too frequently, but certainly more than 1 billion people do it every day I'm sure.
People should be using distilled water or at least a proper filter when doing a sinus rinse.
https://www.hydrasense.com/
This product I've pointed out is pre-mixed ocean water, it comes with the water, not just the salt packet. It's not nasal irrigation, just a spray. It's pretty effective for my sinus infections I've been exceptionally prone to.
You can also boil the water--it doesn't need to be distilled. I'm afraid distilled water may leak ions, probably shouldn't use just distilled water though I've done no research on the topic.
Based on my knowledge (science and tradition combined), you gotta use salt water, ideally the water is from a natural source and has been boiled. I don't know about distilled water. Indians have been doing this for millennia, there is a safe way to do it.
edit: Do you have a source for the fresh water being an issue? Is this an empirical result or just some theory without a study? I'm genuinely interested, I can't find any study of this. It should be easy to do as well, you could study populations in India.
It does seem like they do an especially good job at blocking infections in the respiratory system, but that's both the system that they primed for infection and where they provided the ChAd vaccine, so I don't know how fair of a comparison the intramuscular injection experiments are.