The vaccine, a mist that is sucked in through the mouth, is being offered for free as a booster dose for previously vaccinated individuals.
Residents wearing face masks wait in line Tuesday to get their routine COVID-19 throat-swab tests at a coronavirus testing site in Beijing. BEIJING — The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first.
Needle-free vaccines may persuade people who don’t like getting a shot to get vaccinated, as well as help expand vaccination in poor countries because they are easier to administer. “It was like drinking a cup of milk tea,” one Shanghai resident said in the video. “When I breathed it in, it tasted a bit sweet.”
Larger droplets would train defenses in parts of the mouth and throat, while smaller ones would travel further into the body, said Dr. Vineeta Bal, an immunologist in India.