Micro-needle patch may advance world measles vaccination effort

Measles vaccine given with painless and easy-to-administer micro-needle patches can immunize against measles at least as well as vaccine given with conventional hypodermic needles, according to research done by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the study, the researchers developed a technique to dry and stabilize the measles vaccine – which depends on a live attenuated virus – and showed that it remained effective for at least 30 days after being placed onto the micro-needles. They also demonstrated that the dried vaccine was quickly released in the skin and able to prompt a potent immune response in an animal model. The micro-needle technique could provide a new tool for international immunization programs against measles, which killed nearly 140,000 children in 2010. The research was reported online October 5 in the journal Vaccine, and will appear in a special issue of the journal. The...