Nasal Spray Treatment For Covid-19 Can Help India Beat This Pandemic: Availability, How It Works?

India logged a record high of 3.14 lakh new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, amid the second wave of the pandemic.

The plummeting caseloads in the country are exhausting the vaccine supply capacity, in addition to hospital beds and oxygen shortages.

Another prominent understanding of the ongoing vaccination programme across the country is the solid fact that vaccines do not represent an absolute solution to the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, the government is doing its bit in ramping up immunization targets, all of which you can learn about here.

Amid the already burdened vaccine ecosystem in the country, a Canadian pharmaceutical firm has developed a nasal spray, which claims to have an efficacy rate of over 95%, in effective treatment of Covid-19.

The Canadian biotech firm has shown interest in working with the Indian authorities and providing its nasal spray to alleviate the intense stress, the Indian healthcare sector is currently finding itself in.

What is this Nasal Spray?

A Canada-based pharmaceutical firm, SaNOtize is a nitric oxide spray, which has shown strong evidence in treating the SARS-CoV-2.

The Vancouver based company claims that the nasal spray works by killing 99.9% of the virus in the upper airways, preventing it from incubating and spreading to the lungs and has no side effects.

The first phase of the trial for this spray started on January 11 and the company has successfully sought an emergency approval from the United Kingdom and Canada.

Professor Murad, a member of the SaNOtize board states, “Nitric oxide is an incredibly versatile molecule that regulates almost everything in our body. When used therapeutically, it has a well-documented safety profile and is demonstrated to be effective against a wide variety of viruses, bacteria and fungi.”

At the moment, the nasal spray is being manufactured in Israel. The makers are reaching out to other governments for collaboration, including India, states India Today.

SaNOtise for India

In March, the Canadian firm announced the results of a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical trial, which included 79 participants all of whom had tested positive for the UK variant of COVID-19.

It was found that treating them with the Nitric Oxide Nasal Spray or NONS, led to reducing the viral load in highly infected patients by 1.364, corresponding to over 95% within the first 24 hours, and over 99% after 72 hours, states Timesnow.

The company informed that none of the 7,000 self-administered treatments delivered to patients in previous Canadian clinical trials, along with the participants of the UK trials reported any adverse events.

Speaking of delivering these nasal sprays in India, CEO and co-founder of SaNOtize, Dr Gilly Regev stated, “We’re currently working to find the right partner in India and hoping it will be approved as a medical device in India to prevent COVID-19.”

NONS is expected to be a cheap and portable source of treatment against Covid-19. 

However, currently there is no knowledge of when India would issue the emergency approval of this spray, or how much it would cost.

We shall keep you posted.