"Inhaled Vaccines: Boosting Protection and Advancing Technology for COVID Prevention"

A study conducted on rhesus macaques has shown that intratracheal boosting with a bivalent Ad26-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine enhances mucosal humoral and cellular immunity, providing near complete protection against SARS-CoV-2 BQ.1.1 challenge. This novel immunization strategy induced robust mucosal immune responses, including neutralizing antibodies, binding antibodies, and T cell responses, surpassing those induced by intramuscular and intranasal boosting. The findings suggest that developing vaccines that target mucosal immunity could be effective in blocking respiratory viral infections.