Saar Kuzi
Alessandra Coutinho Fernandes
William Cope
Richard Tapping
Kashif Ahmad
Reda Sadki
Shubhra Kanti Karmaker Santu
Adam P Rusch
Elle Meisner
Nereyda Ochoa
Landon J. Kunzelman
James DotimasFA16 Immunization Module’s Updates
Recent Advances in Vaccination Technology
Let's talk about this beauty. How many times have you been to the doctor to get an immunization and heard kids doing the same thing, but screaming? It's not a secret. Kids hate "shots." Recently researchers have developed an intranasal atomized flu vaccine that swept the nation and put America's parents at rest. No, nasal spray isn’t always a child’s favorite thing, especially the small ones, but they will take that over a shot everyday, 100%. So this brings up the question, why can't vaccines be delivered by other routes or in less painful ways? If this were the case, kids wouldn't be afraid of shots, because there wouldn't be any. The image above is a microneedle patch. Recent studies have shown it to be a painless but effective way to boost influenza vaccines AND lower the cost of administration. I have been in Emergency Medicine for over a decade and I have never seen anything like this. The study claims to have improved vaccination compliance from 44% up to an amazing 65%, and that’s an incredible number in this regard. The idea is that a person can now self-administer the transdermal patch where the vaccine is absorbed through micro abrasions in the skin and still deliver an effective dose with good efficacy. So if this can be done with the influenza vaccine, can it be done with others? In my opinion, this has the potential to revolutionize vaccines in many ways. Painless, self-administered, no potential for secondary injury due to a needle (I've been stuck with a dirty needle before, luckily I didn't contract anything, but the procedures and policies are not fun regardless). Almost seems too good to be true. The research is still in its infancy, but what do you guys think?
All information came from thepediablog.com by Dr. Ned Ketyer M.D. and can be found by following this link.
Getting away from needle sticks is very helpful including the potential to improve perceptions of safety. I would be curious to see if they have looked at the efficacy of this delivery method. The oral polio vaccine also avoided the needle stick, as did the nasal influenza vaccine. Nasal vaccines are under development for STDs since they have been shown to provide protection to the genital urinary tract.
This sounds very promising! @Emily McLaughlin I was wondering the same thing regarding immunization record keeping. People who self-administer the vaccine should still be required to have an official immunization record filled out and signed off by a health professional, and therefore would still have to come into the doctor's office and prove that they had self-administered the vaccine patch. However, this still sounds like a great alternative to traditional injection if used in the out patient setting.
This is pretty cool! During research for my update I also encountered a couple other new ways to administer vaccines but nothing that seemed as harmless as this. One thought I did have though was the concept of self-administered vaccines and if this has the potential to go south. With something this simple it seems ridiculous to have someone go all the way into a doctor's office or a pharmacy to receive it, but at the same time, how do you make sure the vaccine gets administered? For people like us and those we intend to work with making sure that everyone considered personnel who walks through hospital or clinic doors needs to be inoculated. Could the possibility of having people on the books as vaccinated/ but walking around actually being quite the opposite pose a threat to everyone
@Derek Sonnenberg This is awesome! My usual response to children that are afraid of needles and shots is to just have the parents restrain them, and comfort then afterwards (I'm sure we've all heard the words That wasn't so bad uttered by our parents when we were little). Antigens almost always have protein components that have a unique 3D shape. It's difficult to deliver an antigen in its proper configuration in any other way besides a subcutaneous injection.
However, if such a device is able to overcome the obstacles faced by intranasal flu shots, and deliver a high-quality antigen with less pain and cost, then bring it on!
This is really interesting! I have not heard about this (maybe I'm super uninformed). Some questions I thought about to myself include:
How user friendly are these? It seems pretty simple but is there any way of people putting these on incorrectly, which would reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine.Also, would people actually keep up with the vaccinations and apply the vaccinations they need?
@Derek Sonnenberg this is an extremely interesting look into the future of vaccination. I know I hated going to get shots as a kid. Things like this can go a long way into making interactions with the medical field to become more comfortable for people who may not like going to the doctor's office.