Coronavirus: Vaccination

(asked on 8th December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential for covid-19 nasal vaccines being introduced as part of the NHS vaccination programme.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 15th December 2021

The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) are supporting some studies on oral or nasal administration of COVID-19 vaccines. As part of the NIHR’s and UKRI’s research call, approximately £580,000 has been awarded to Imperial College London for a study of two candidate COVID-19 vaccines administered to the respiratory tract. The study began in September 2020 and researchers are focusing on nasal delivery of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The NIHR is also providing infrastructure support to another phase one study led by University of Oxford on the intranasal administration of the COVID vaccine ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 in healthy adults in the United Kingdom.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) also continues to monitor and engage with developers and producers of new COVID-19 vaccines. The MHRA will ensure a thorough assessment of the safety and efficacy of any new COVID 19 vaccines before any authorisation, as soon as it receives the evidence to make such an assessment.

Reticulating Splines