China-Linked Journal Pushes Aerosolized, Inhaled 'Pan-Coronavirus' Vaccine with 'Next-Generation Design'

The journal's editorial policies are determined "in accordance with the legal and regulatory requirements of China."

Representing a foreshadowing of what future vaccine campaigns could look like, a new publication in Cellular & Molecular Immunology (CMI) discusses the feasibility and progress being made toward the “ultimate goal of creating a pan-coronavirus vaccine” with the stated goal of protecting against infection and disease by all coronavirus variants.

Current COVID-19 vaccines target only one virus variant.

The hypothetical new drug would utilize “next-generation vaccine design,” “diverse technologies,” and “novel approaches,” according to the study.

The authors claim the scientific community is unified in its “renewed interest” in and desire to develop “pan-family or universal vaccines.”

“There is a strong consensus in the scientific community regarding the need to develop more effective next-generation vaccines,” they write.

Significantly, the study authors theorize the new vaccine platform would not be administered through conventional methods, such as a needle.

Rather, in addition to potentially administering vaccines through oral, sublingual, and intranasal methods, the publication advocates for “aerosol administration,” whereby the vaccine is delivered in the form of aerosol particles for inhalation.

As motive for developing the new vaccine, the authors cite “emergent viruses of concern” warned about by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In particular, they reference “disease X,” a designator the WHO has given to represent some future, yet yet-unknown “newly emerging pathogen.”

This apparently yet-to-be-discovered disease necessitates that the new vaccine technology “can be rolled out rapidly in the event of a new viral emergence,” according to the study.

“Now is the right time to develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine due to advances in vaccine technologies,” the authors conclude.

CMI is the “official journal of the Chinese Society of Immunology (CSI) and the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC).”

The journal’s editorial policies are determined “in accordance with the legal and regulatory requirements of China.”

Its editors-in-chief are Xuetao Cao of Naval Medical University in Shanghai, China, and Zhigang Tian of the University of Science & Technology of China in Hefei.

The U.S. House Committee On Oversight and Accountability determined there is “mounting evidence continues to show that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence similarly concluded that COVID “probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019” (here, here).