Vaccinations have just gotten simpler. A patch is being developed that has hundreds of tiny micro-needles that dissolve into the skin, taking the vaccine with it into the blood stream. Simple, pain-free, and, if studies on mice have any indication, more effective at immunizing. Hopefully, this becomes available before the next swine/bird/insertanimalhere flu epidemic comes around.Additional Links:
Macroflux® Microprojection Array Patch Technology: A New and Efficient Approach for Intracutaneous Immunization (Scientific Article)
But, let me guess, it's to expensive to mass-produce.
ReplyDeleteThat always seems to be the issue with anything super great like that.
Haha, always the cynic. I haven't heard anything about how expensive it is to produce, since it's still in the testing phase, but hopefully the money it saves by allowing people to vaccinate themselves will offset the production cost.
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