Hype

This turned up via Twitter, with the headline Pitt researchers developing a nasal spray that could prevent covid-19

“The nice thing about Q-griffithsin is that it has a number of activities against other viruses and pathogens,” said Lisa Rohan, an associate professor in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy and one of the lead researchers in the collaboration, in a statement. “It’s been shown to be effective against Ebola, herpes and hepatitis, as well as a broad spectrum of coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS.”

The active ingredient is the synthetic form of protein extracted from a seaweed found in Australia and NZ. Guess how many human studies there have been of this treatment?

Clinicaltrials.gov reports one completed safety study of a vaginal gel, and one ongoing safety study of rectal administration, both aimed at HIV prevention. There appear to have been no studies against coronaviruses in humans, nor Ebola, herpes, or hepatitis. There appear to have been no studies of a nasal-spray version in humans (and I couldn’t even find any in animals, just studies of tissue samples in a lab). It’s not clear that a nasal spray would work even if it worked — eg, is preventing infection via the nose enough, or do you need to worry about the mouth.

Researchers should absolutely be trying all these things, but making claims of demonstrated effectiveness is not on.  We don’t want busy journalists having to ask Dr Bloomfield if we should stick seaweed up our noses.