A single nasal spray vaccine could soon offer high level protection against the common cold, flu and COVID-19, scientists in the United States have said. 

The vaccine has been successfully tested on animals by a team at the University of Stanford and is now moving onto human trials. 

It has been described as a ‘universal vaccine’, as it unusually treats more than one disease. 

On The Claire Byrne Show, Comparative Immunology at Trinity, Professor Cliona O'Farrelly, described it as “really, very exciting” and a “completely new way of looking at vaccination”. 

“I mean, the classic vaccination takes a specific pathogen and makes a specific immune response to us, for example, polio and our smallpox,” she said. 

“We know we got rid of smallpox from the planet because of making a specific immune response. 

“But in this case, what they're doing is boosting the innate immune response so that overall, the innate immune response in the respiratory tract is functioning better and can therefore fight a whole lot of pathogens, not just one single one.”

 Professor O'Farrelly added that this means the vaccine is “really quite different” to other vaccines. 

“The way we classically have driven a vaccine… was injecting the vaccine into our arms and our lymph nodes making the immune response,” she said. 

“We talk about it being systemic - the whole body making an immune response. 

“Whereas here, what they're doing is they're getting the respiratory tract, the respiratory immune system geared up so that it's better able to fight. 

“This is what's really quite different.” 

A man with a cold. Picture by: Alamy.com. 

Given how many people fall ill with a cold, many have wondered why a vaccine for the common cold has not been invented before. 

However, Professor O'Farrelly noted that is not unusual and many diseases do not have vaccines for them. 

“The irony is why we have some really wonderful vaccines that have been very powerful, like, as I've said, the smallpox,” she said. 

“There are huge numbers of pathogens that we don't have a good vaccine against.

“I'm over here in Australia at the moment at a meeting where there's been huge talk about malaria; I mean, malaria is a parasite that's killing literally millions of people.

“And we still don't actually have a good vaccine against it.” 

Life saving inventions

However, even when a vaccine is invented many people shun them and there have been recent outbreaks of measles in the United States and Britain. 

While the overall measles vaccination rate in England was 83.7% last year, in Enfield - which is home to a recent outbreak - the rate was only 64.3%. 

Given measles can kill a child, Professor O'Farrelly said it is hugely concerning that a parent would not vaccinate their child against it. 

“If we didn't have those vaccines, there are literally millions of babies who would have died,” she said. 

“And we as humans find it so easy to forget the terrible times of when babies died of these infections.”

Main image: A person using nasal spray. Picture by: Alamy.com.