March 03, 2013, Hyderabad, India – A new vaccine system that require neither refrigeration nor trained practitioners will soon be tested in clinical trials. Sci Dev Net reports :
Most vaccines are currently injected using needle and syringe. But unsafe practices including needle and syringe reuse can lead to infections and deaths in developing countries. Nanopatch delivers vaccine through an array of microprojections on a tiny patch placed on the skin, so there would be no pain and fears associated with vaccines delivered by needles.
Since skin is rich in immune cells, the device can trigger an immune response — and hence protection from disease — comparable with that brought about by the needle and syringe method, while requiring only a tiny portion of the dose.
This means that Nanopatch vaccines do not need an adjuvant — a substance that is added to the vaccine to increase the body’s immune response—and are likely to cost much less than conventionally delivered ones.
“When the device is made in sufficiently large numbers, our cost estimates are significantly less than US$1 per dose,” said researcher Mark Kendall of the University of Queensland, Australia.“That opens up possibilities for use in the developing world.”
The patches are small and compact, hence easy to transport, and since they use the vaccine in dried form, they do not need cold-chain refrigeration.
Following successful trials against Chikungunya, West Nile virus and the Human Papillomavirus in mice, Nanopatch is now being tested in real-life settings.
As a precursor to full clinical trials, Kendall carried out usability trials last October at the Port Moresby General Hospital in Papua New Guinea.
“The devices proved to be easy to use by the healthcare workers with minimal training and were successfully applied onto the patients’ arms,” Kendall said SciDevNet.
This means that Nanopatch could go straight to clinical trials, planned for late 2014 to early 2015, he says.
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