During the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah 2020, Israeli researchers realized that they had a solid opportunity in the real world to try a nasal spray that they were developing as a COVID-19 defense.
As the new year of the Jewish faith, tens of thousands would be traveling and attending synagogue and related festivals in the densely populated city of Bnei Brak – making it an ideal test site.
Approved in Israel, Taffix, a spray created by Nasus Pharma, creates a mechanical and chemical protective barrier for about five hours when inhaled through the nose. It was this spray that his co-creator, Dalia Megiddo, offered a rabbi Bnei Brak to use at festivals.
83 people agreed to use the spray before the festivals as instructed – reapplying every five hours until the end of the celebrations. Notably, of the 83 people who used the nasal spray, only two caught COVID-19; both reported forgetting to use it. Of the 160 people who were approached, but chose not to use the nasal spray, 16 of them – or 10% – contracted the virus.
A game changer
Nasal sprays are being tested at various research institutes as effective defenses for COVID-19, which makes sense: although the mouth is an extremely hostile environment for viruses, the nose is much less protected.
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The Telegraph reports that researchers at the University of London are working on the first set of clinical tests for a nasal spray: nitric oxide is its active ingredient, and has been proven to kill 99.9% of the virus that causes COVID-19 and provides protection against viruses input and output.
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Nitric oxide is something that is found and produced in red blood cells, but it also kills viruses virtually in contact. Pankaj Sharma, a professor of neurology who works on the study at the University of London, sees nasal sprays as a game changer because they disrupt the structural integrity of the virus regardless of antibodies or other immune cells.
“If we take the South African variant, as soon as it touches nitric oxide, it will be structurally destroyed anyway; the fact that it has a different RNA profile makes no difference to nitric oxide, ”he told the Telegraph.
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Furthermore, as it is simply an endogenous chemical, similar to taking something like a melatonin supplement, he cannot imagine why anyone would choose not to use it or why someone would have adverse reactions to it.
Featured image: Robin_24, CC license
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