While vaccination rates across the world have been on the rise over the past decade, they are still low — 13.5 million children were not vaccinated in 2018.
One of the main challenges posed by global immunization campaigns is keeping the vaccines refrigerated during transportation, which is often difficult and expensive — and in some parts of the world nearly impossible.
Fortunately, after working for more than a decade on solving the issue, a team of researchers from the University of Texas has finally homed in on a potential solution — a needle-free, shelf-stable vaccine in the form of a rapidly dissolving film that does not require refrigeration and can be given by mouth.
The best part of this medical breakthrough is that since the ingredients to make the film are cheap and the process is relatively simple, it could make vaccine campaigns much more affordable, with storage and transportation processes hundreds of times more efficient.
On top of that, compared to conventional immunization campaigns, which produce a mind-boggling amount of waste in the form of syringes, caps, cottons swabs and packaging, the innovative film can be distributed by health workers equipped only with an envelope containing the vaccine, leaving no trace behind, except for a healthier global population.
