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New results hint at how to perfect ‘mucosal’ vaccines, which are delivered up the nose or down the throat. Delivery of COVID vaccines directly to the lungs and nose can stop SARS-CoV-2 infections in their tracks, according to a trio of new studies in monkeys. The research offers a boost to the wave of ‘mucosal’ COVID-19 vaccines now in development — and provides clues about how they might be improved. Until now, there has been little evidence that mucosal vaccines, which are taken by nose or mouth, shield people against infection any better than existing COVID-19 jabs do. Even so, some countries have already approved such vaccines, and key trials are under way in the United States, with others set to start. Together, the studies show that how and where vaccines are delivered can have a profound effect on the immunity generated and the protection conferred. The latest results also raise hopes that mucosal vaccines that offer ‘sterilising’ immunity — complete blockage of infection — could become a reality. “These studies are showing you can get near sterilising immunity,” says Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. "It’s not complete science fiction to think about developing vaccines that would stop transmission and infection....
