Scientists have created a vaccine against whooping cough that doesn’t require a needle injection – instead it can be delivered via the nose.
A research team from Trinity College Dublin have created a nasally delivered vaccine that not only prevents severe disease but also curbs bacterial transmission.
It comes as cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, have soared. More than 500 cases of the highly infectious disease were reported between January and June this year, including eight in babies under three months old, the latest UKHSA data revealed.
Current whooping cough vaccines, while life-saving, have key limitations. They protect infants from severe illness but fail to prevent bacterial colonisation in the nose and throat – allowing the illness to spread within communities.
But the new vaccine can deliver immunity directly at the infection site and provide stronger protection.
“We’ve applied our understanding of protective immune pathways to engineer a fundamentally different kind of vaccine,” said Professor Kingston Mills of Trinity’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology.
“By stimulating immunity where infections begin, at the respiratory mucosa, we can offer stronger protection and potentially interrupt community transmission.”
The findings published in the journal Nature Microbiology address an urgent global need for new vaccination methods.
For the vaccine, researchers used antibiotic-inactivated Bordetella pertussis (AIBP) – an approach where bacteria are killed using antibiotics to create a whole-cell vaccine that can be administered via the respiratory tract.
By administering the vaccine through the nose, researchers found it activated T-cells, which help the body fight germs in the lungs and upper respiratory tract without triggering unwanted inflammation.
In preclinical studies in mice, AIBP protected against infection of the lungs and nasal cavity, outperforming current whooping cough vaccines.
These findings suggest AIBP could serve as both a stand-alone next-generation pertussis vaccine and a starting point for other vaccines against other pathogens that cause respiratory illnesses. But more research is needed before it can be used on people.
Whooping cough affects the lungs and airways and can cause severe illness and death in babies.
The infection gets its name from the distinctive “whoop” sound that young children can make as they gasp for breath between bouts of severe coughing.
It spreads through droplets in the air from coughing and sneezing, and can lead to pneumonia, brain damage, heart and lung failure, and death.
Vaccine uptake among children in England is now at its lowest level for 15 years, according to the UKHSA.
Almost one in five children who started primary school this year in England were not fully protected against diseases, including whooping cough, polio, tetanus and diphtheria.
Vaccination rates among pregnant women have also been in long-term decline. Uptake peaked at 76 per cent in 2016 but fell to 59 per cent by March last year. Following whooping cough deaths last year, uptake has improved to 73 per cent, though this remains below the previous high.
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