Your Next COVID Booster Might Go Up Your Nose

The nose knows, as the saying goes, and a new study suggests this may be the case for immunologic knowledge against the COVID-19 virus, too. A team of German researchers gave hamsters an intranasal vaccine for COVID-19, finding the nose spray outperformed mRNA shots in protecting the hamsters from the Delta variant. They see potential for the vaccine as a booster, particularly against wily future COVID variants that are beginning to escape the immune system.

The research was published on April 3 in the journal Nature Microbiology.

Existing COVID-19 shots that require a jab in the arm (like those made by Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines) prepare immune cells in the bloodstream to recognize and mobilize antibodies and the rest of the immune system quickly against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, warding off subsequent invaders with quick precision before an infection can develop. The problem is that this process isn’t immediate. We know that SARS-CoV-2 shows up first in the mucosal membranes of the respiratory system. A vaccine that equipped immune cells in the nose, throat, and lungs would theoretically be able to respond faster to infection then one that needs to start in the bloodstream.

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