The Union Health Ministry has approved Bharat Biotech’s intranasal COVID-19 vaccine as a booster dose for those aged 18 years and above.
According to reports, the vaccine doses will be available at ₹800+ GST+ hospital charges for private hospitals. Moreover, the intranasal COVID-19 vaccine, iNCOVACC is now available on CoWin and priced at ₹325 for a government hospital.
Reportedly, the country’s first intranasal covid vaccine will be rolled out in the fourth week of January as a booster dose for those above 18 years of age.
The needleless vaccine can be administered as a precautionary dose to adults who have been vaccinated with two doses of either Covishield or Covaxin.
In November this year, the nasal vaccine — BBV154 — received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for restricted use in an emergency situation for those above 18 years as a heterologous booster dose.
Dr NK Arora, chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) told the news agency PTI that it is easy to administer and builds up immune barriers in the respiratory tract through which respiratory viruses enter the body.
The intranasal vaccine is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilised spike protein.
According to Bharat Biotech, this vaccine candidate was evaluated in phase I, II, and III clinical trials with successful results.
