Painless patch could replace flu jab: Study

paris — Vaccines delivered via a painless, throw-away patch could one day eliminate the need for needle-and-syringe flu injections, researchers said on Wednesday after completing a preliminary trial.

Equipped with micro-needles, the patches vaccinated against influenza just as effectively as a standard flu jab, they reported in the medical journal The Lancet.

“This bandage-strip sized patch of dissolvable needles can transform how we get vaccinated,” said Roderic Pettigrew, director of the US National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, which funded the study.

The new technology can be self-administered and stored without refrigeration, making it significantly cheaper that traditional vaccines.

“It holds the promise for delivering other vaccines in the future,” Pettigrew added.

A hundred tiny needles — just long enough to penetrate the skin — embedded in each patch dissolve within minutes when exposed to moisture from the body.

Adhesive holds the patch close the skin while the vaccine is released, and can be peeled away after 20 minutes and discarded.

In phase I clinical trials, researchers from Emory University in Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology randomly divided 100 adults into four groups. —