Rabat – Morocco’s Ministry of Health and Social Protection has approved the use of Convidecia Air, the world’s first inhaled COVID-19 vaccine, for emergency use.
The Chinese vaccine manufacturer Cansino Biologics announced the news on Thursday, saying that Morocco’s move represents the “first overseas approval” of the vaccine.
The needle-free vaccine, which can be self-administered without needing the supervision of health professionals, is a “genetic engineered inhaled vaccine to prevent COVID-19 disease,” indicated the statement.
Cansino Biologics highlighted the vaccine’s advantages, including its “more efficient delivery method which is needle-free, painless and non-invasive.”
The vaccine manufacturer also claimed that Convidecia Air can strengthen the body’s immunity against the virus “after just one breath.”
The vaccine has so far been approved in Morocco and China. Last September, Cansino Biologics announced that China’s National Medical Products Administration has approved the vaccine “for emergency use as a booster vaccine” in the country.
Cansino Biologics referred to “peer-reviewed research,” which shows that Convidecia Air is “safe to use with only one-fifth of the dosage of the intramuscular version of CanSinoBIO’s COVID-19 vaccine,” which is administered via intramuscular injection.
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The statement added that the use of the inhaled vaccine as a “heterologous booster” has generated “much stronger immune responses” than those induced by another homologous inactivated vaccine booster.
The Chinese vaccine manufacturer argued that the vaccine can achieve triple protection, as it “triggers a mucosal immune response in addition to humoral and cellular immunity observed in people who were vaccinated with the intramuscular version.”
The treatment has been introduced across Chinese provinces, including Shanghai, Tianjin, and Jiangsu, with the aim of strengthening the population’s protection against COVID-19 and its variants, the statement concluded.
