Vaccine Patch?
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a new COVID-19 vaccine being tested by the University of Queensland, Australia might have the answer: it comes as a patch, not a needle.
“[I]t’s much more user-friendly than a needle,” explained Dr David Muller of the University of Queensland School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences. “You simply ‘click’ an applicator on the skin, and 5000 microscopic projections almost-imperceptibly deliver vaccine into the skin.”
In a paper published today in the journal Science Advances, Muller and team described how the patch vaccine successfully protected mice against exposure to SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19. Even better, the immune response triggered by the patch was stronger than the same vaccine delivered by needle.
“When the … vaccine is delivered via HD-MAP applicator [patch] – rather than a needle – it produces better and faster immune responses,” Muller said. “It also neutralises multiple variants, including the UK and South Africa variants.”
Needle-phobics aside, this could be a massive breakthrough for people in poor and developing countries, the researchers said. The vaccine used in the trial was the University of Texas candidate HexaPro, developed in the hopes of advancing low-cost and widely distributable vaccines. It can be stored at temperatures as high as 8°C (46.4°F), removing the need for specialist freezers, and it is made in eggs, just like flu vaccines – meaning the infrastructure to produce them is already established around the world.“We are witnessing unprecedented disparities in COVID-19 vaccine access around the world,” said Ilya Finkelstein, one of the team who developed HexaPro, in a statement back in April. “We designed HexaPro to … bring us a step closer towards addressing the wide disparity in vaccine access.”
The patch delivery system develops that mission further: the vaccine proteins are stable on the patch for up to a month at 25°C, and a week even at temperatures as high as 40°C, the paper reveals.
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Very interesting. Isn't one company developing a pill??
It will be interesting to look back in 10 years and see what we have in place for the virus. Because I agree with @jolly , it is not going to completely go away ever.
