An Irish company that makes medical devices has confirmed its delivery technology for an inhaled Covid-19 vaccine is currently under review for emergency use in China and could be rolled out in several countries as early as next year.
Aerogen, which is based in Galway, has developed the product for CanSinoBIO, a Chinese vaccine company. The firm believes the technology could be a “game-changer” in the global fight against the virus in 2022.
The aerosol vaccine can be directly inhaled by a patient through a clear plastic cup, using as little as a fifth of the dose administered intravenously.
The vaccine is currently being reviewed by the National Medical Products Administration, China’s medicines regulator, after clinical trials involving several hundred patients. The interim results of phase three of the clinical trials demonstrated an efficacy rate of 95.47 per cent at preventing severe disease, 14 days after a single-dose vaccine.
John Power, the chief executive of Aerogen, said if approval was granted in China there were plans to roll the vaccine out in Mexico, Pakistan, Chile and several other countries.
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“Even though China has the capacity for 500 million doses of the vaccine per year, the government wanted them to produce more to rollout globally,” he said.
“They were looking at other countries like Pakistan, Mexico, Chile and [parts of] Africa, where really the rollout has been pitiful.”
Power said the vaccine had the ability to achieve a “bigger” T-lymphocyte or T-cell response than other products, with very little vaccine required. “It’s quite logical when you think about it, the coronavirus comes in through your respiratory tract, it doesn’t come in through your skin or through your veins — it comes in as you inhale it,” he said.
“So their [CanSinoBio] theory, which is proved right, is that where you really want to trigger an immune response is not by injecting someone, but by delivering a virus in through the respiratory mucosa and triggering the exact response there rather than through the bloodstream.
“What they discovered is the response is quite different, T-cells that are activated to respond to the virus are more focused in respiratory mucosal response then in the vascular response, so you get a slightly different T-cell response, but you get a bigger T-cell response.”
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Power said CanSinoBio carried out the clinical trials while Aerogen worked on the delivery system. “We came up with the idea of a coffee dock station in order to separate the device from the actual container the person inhales from,” he said.
“We needed something that was very cheap globally and I figured, coffee cups are manufactured all over the world and they’re very cheap. We then moved from coffee cups to clear plastic cups because you could see the aerosol.”
He explained the process: “You come along with the cup which is fed to the device. The device delivers the aerosol 0.1 millilitres and then it signals that the aerosol is full. You inhale from the cup — in one breath you take the 0.1 millilitres aerosol, you then dispose of the cup and you’ve taken your vaccine.”
Power said the company had spoken to the Food and Drug Administration in the US and the European Medicines Agency in the early days of the trials but were told at that time that the pandemic “could be over” by the time their clinical trials were complete.
A further 4,688 new cases of Covid-19 were reported by the Department of Health last night including eight new cases of the Omicron variant bringing the total number in the state to 18. A total of 518 patients were being treated for the disease in hospital, 15 more compared to the day previous. There were 108 people with the virus in intensive care units, down one.
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Stephen Donnelly, the minister for health, confirmed last night he had accepted a recommendation from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) to reduce the gap between the second and third dose of the vaccine to three months, amid growing concern of the Omicron variant. Up until now, only people who had received a J&J vaccine were eligible for a booster vaccine after three months, however, this will now be extended to recipients of all vaccines. The HSE has said one third of those who received a booster vaccine last week were given a Moderna dose as supply of the product is close to its expiry date. It said most people being offered a third dose at mass vaccination centres will be given Moderna, rather than Pfizer.
Meanwhile, the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) has said the government must provide “access to expertise” on best usage of its Covid-19 funding. The government has announced a €10 million fund for improved ventilation in pre-school and childcare facilities, including the purchase of high-efficiency particulate air (Hepa) filters.
The grants, which range from €1,500 for facilities with less than 50 children to €4,500 for those with more than 100 children, may be insufficient to fund Hepa filters for all rooms, based on the government’s own cost estimates. Micheál Martin, the taoiseach, told the Dail last week that Hepa filters for primary and post-primary classrooms would cost between €1,500 and €1,800 each.
Michael Gillespie, the general secretary of the TUI, said: “In addition to making this funding available, it is crucial that the department provides access to expertise on ventilation and related issues so that schools can best use the resources available.
“The importance of adequate ventilation in keeping schools and colleges safe has been continuously referenced and universally recognised, but it must be borne in mind that no two schools are the same. Even within particular schools, classroom spaces are not uniform in terms of size, shape, orientation and ventilation facilities.”
