Researchers are working on a COVID-19 vaccine that people may drink instead of receiving with a needle, expanding their focus onto mucosal vaccines, which include nasal vaccines as well as "swish and swallow" oral vaccines.

The vaccine, called QYNDR, completed its Phase 1 clinical trial and is currently waiting on more funding to conduct the more detailed, advanced trials that could actually bring the vaccine to market, reports CNET.

"The QYNDR vaccine is pronounced 'kinder' because it's a softer way to deliver a vaccine," the founder of QYNDR's maker, US Specialty Formulations, was quoted as saying.

Moreover, the report said that promising clinical trial results from New Zealand offer hope that QYNDR will be a viable option for protection against the string of COVID-19 variants circulating now.

"It's really challenging to have a vaccine survive making it through your digestive system," she said. "We were able to figure out how to get a vaccine past the stomach and into the gut and have it be effective and induce the appropriate response," she added.

Scientists are hopeful that mucosal vaccines will not only protect against severe diseases and death, as revolutionary mRNA vaccines and boosters have but also ward off infections, the report said.

Different from traditional vaccines, mucosal vaccines enter through our mucous membranes, either through our nose (as in the much-discussed nasal COVID-19 vaccine) or through our gut (as in the orally suspended QYNDRs).

Mucosal vaccines have been supported as viable, or even preferable, options for combating COVID-19 infections due to the different types of immunity they produce and the fact that it begins right where the virus enters our bodies, the report mentioned.