The simple way to prevent flu and other respiratory infections

Want to prevent a respiratory infection?

A small amount of antibiotic cream inside the nose can help fight off a range of invading respiratory viruses, a new study suggests.

Experimental animals subjected to treatment with neomycin in the nose (neomycin is the main ingredient in an over-the-counter cream you can get from the pharmacy), they developed strong immune defenses against both the COVID virus and a highly virulent strain of influenzathe researchers found.

The same nasal approach has been shown to work in humans.

The ointment triggered a rapid immune response from genes in the human nose that serve as the first line of defense against invading viruses, the researchers reported.

“This is an exciting finding because an inexpensive, over-the-counter antibiotic ointment can stimulate the human body to activate an antiviral response,” said Akiko Iwasaki, professor of immunobiology and dermatology at Yale School of Medicine.

The Neosporin formulation contains neomycin, bacitracin, and polymyxin B, according to the US National Institutes of Medicine.

The COVID-19 virus has infected more than 774 million people and killed nearly 7 million, researchers said. Meanwhile, influenza viruses cause up to 5 million cases of severe illness and half a million deaths annually.

In the face of these threats, people are developing treatments that are usually taken orally or intravenously, the researchers said. These approaches focus on stopping the progression of infections.

But researchers believe a nose-focused treatment has a much better chance of stopping infections before they spread to the lungs and cause life-threatening illnesses such as pneumonia.

Starting with experiments on mice, the researchers found that nasal neomycin induced a robust immune response in those exposed to COVID and influenza viruses.

Neomycin appeared to be particularly effective in laboratory hamsters from contact transmission of COVID, the researchers said.

Some healthy people who had neomycin cream applied to their noses also showed a strong immune response.

“Our findings suggest that we may be able to optimize this inexpensive antibiotic to prevent viral infections and their spread in human populations, particularly in resource-limited global communities. This approach, because it is host-directed, should work no matter what the virus is.”

The findings were published in the medical journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.