Early study reveals that a novel vaccine patch could be more successful than an injection in protecting against COVID-19.
Antibodies in mice were forty times higher when two doses of a COVID-19 vaccination were administered through skin patch compared to doses given via needle, according to a study headed by researchers at the University of Queensland and published in Science Advances on Friday.
Even after one dose, the patch provided much higher blood antibody levels than an injection, according to the study authors.
In the lab, the antibodies created by the vaccine patch were effective against the previously dominant Alpha and Beta versions. They didn’t test it against the most frequent Delta form in the United States, which is extremely contagious.
The researchers noted that a single dose appeared to inhibit the virus from multiplying in the brain and lungs, which was ‘notable’ because the virus that causes COVID-19 may infect these bodily organs in mice and people.
Human trials will begin in 2022, according to Dr. David Muller, the study’s lead researcher at the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre.
Because the skin is ‘packed with immunological cells,’ Muller explained that the vaccinations given to the skin often produce robust immune responses. According to AFP, muscle lacks many of the immune cells required to respond to the vaccine.
‘Less vaccine given precisely to the skin can elicit an immune response similar to intramuscular injection,’ said Burak Ozdoganlar, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who has been working on patch vaccination technology since 2007 but was not involved in the study. In comparison to an injection, this could mean that smaller vaccination doses are needed to inoculate patients.
According to the authors, the technique also promises easier distribution than current COVID-19 doses, less medical waste, and a lower risk of unintentional needle pricks.
A one-centimeter-squared patch with around 5,000 spikes coated in vaccine is known as a high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP). Muller told the media that they were so small that one cannot see them.’
The patch is applied to the skin in two minutes with a hockey puck-shaped applicator. The sensation of getting vaccinated, according to Muller, is a lot like a nice ‘flick.’
HexaPro, the vaccine utilised on the patch, is based on a protein that triggers an immune response and was produced by experts at the University of Texas. In Vietnam and Thailand, separate clinical trials of the vaccine on humans which are administered through injections have begun.
The vaccine looked to stay stable at room temperature for up to a month after being administered to the patch. The researchers found that existing COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer were stable at the same temperature for two hours to a week.
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