Residents of St. Petersburg will be vaccinated against COVID with a nasal spray

St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region have applied for a nasal vaccine against covid-19 . As RBC Petersburg was told in the St. Petersburg HEALTH Committee, Smolny has no information about the timing of the drug. The government of the Leningrad region also stated that now their application is under consideration by the Ministry of Health; neither the date of delivery nor the number of doses that will be provided to the region is known yet.

it is known that, most likely, the nasal drug "Gam-Kovid-Vak" from the center of Gamaleya, better known as "Sputnik V", will arrive in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. Recall that RUSSIA also registered a vaccine against “covid” in the form of a spray “Salnavak”, produced by the Russian company “Generium”.

"Sputnik" for the nose

The Ministry of Health of Russia registered the nasal "Gam-COVID-Vac" in the spring of 2022. “The vaccine, like Sputnik V, consists of two components based on adenoviral vectors of the 26th and fifth types and is administered using a special spray nozzle into the nasal cavity with an interval of three weeks, that is, in the “prime-boost” mode. ," the ministry said. The drug forms immunity on the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract. Patients have increased titers of IgA antibodies in the blood and nasal mucus and IgG antibodies that neutralize the virus in the blood. Also, the drug causes a cellular immune response to the CORONAVIRUS.

Currently, the spray is only approved for vaccination of patients over 18 years of age. It is assumed that it will be used primarily for revaccination of those already vaccinated with the injectable version of the vaccine. By March 7, the drug was administered to more than 100 volunteers, they had no side effects, said Alexander Gintsburg, HEAD of the Gamaleya center.

Revaccination against the new wave

As for the revaccination of Petersburgers and residents of the Leningrad Region, officials and doctors began to talk about it more often amid reports of the approach of a new wave of coronavirus. The number of registered infections in St. Petersburg has doubled in the last week - if on July 13 there were 297, then yesterday it was already 604. Experts note that the main indicators of the acute phase will be the number of hospitalizations and deaths. Although they still remain stable in the region, experts do not undertake to predict what the increase in incidence will be in the fall. This will largely depend on the emergence of new strains of the virus, the policy of restrictions and herd immunity, which is estimated at 22% in St. Petersburg by mid-summer.

According to epidemiologist Nadezhda Satosova, revaccination is necessary in a pandemic every six months. The nasal form of the vaccine for these purposes is considered optimal - it creates local immunity on the mucous membrane, has virtually no side effects and is easier to tolerate by people.