Microneedles to deliver flu shots in the future?
July 20th, 2010 - 8:46 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt
New York, July 20 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Researchers are trying to find ways of making the delivery of vaccines more convenient. They are looking at ways of delivering vaccines to people’s homes, so they can administer it themselves. Microneedles seem likely to be used in the future.
They consist of small tiny needles that can’t even be felt by the body. They will be given by patches and will easily release vaccine into the skin while barely making contact with the body.
The report was published in Sunday’s edition of Natural Medicine by a team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, which was led by Mark Prausnitz.
The patch will feel like sandpaper to the skin. During the tests, reports indicated majority of people said the microneedles were painless. Many medications such as nicotine patches for people who want to stop smoking are already delivered by patches. However flu vaccines delivered by patches have been tried but they have been unsuccessful in the in the past.
In the tests, the vaccines were injected, but no pain was associated with it as the needles are very small with a length of 650 microns and 100 on the patch.
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Tags: flu, flu shots, flu vaccines, georgia institute of technology, institute of technology, medications, medicine, microneedles, microns, natural medicine, nicotine, nicotine patches, sandpaper, tiny needles