An antiviral nasal spray treatment for Covid-19, developed by Dutch and US scientists, has been shown to protect ferrets.
The spray, designed by scientists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, US, and Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, includes a component which stops the virus entering cells.
The spray offers a more cost-effective and accessible treatment for Covid-19, thanks to its long-shelf life and low production costs, and the team will now move to develop this further in human studies.
Results published in Science showed that one shot of the spray protected ferrets, an animal susceptible to Covid-19 infection, against multiple variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus for 24 hours.