Thin-Strip Vaccine

Remove strip from package. Place on tongue. Enjoy vaccination. That’s the idea behind a new technology, which could someday provide life-saving rotavirus vaccine to children in impoverished and remote areas.

A team at Johns Hopkins University fabricated a thin film (pictured above) that melts quickly in a baby’s mouth and can vaccinate it against rotavirus, which kills 600,000 children each year due to severe diarrhea and vomiting.

Rotavirus vaccine is currently produced in a liquid or freeze-dried form that must be chilled, making it difficult for third-world countries to get access to. And newborns sometimes spit out the liquid—a problem that can be easily avoided when the vaccine sticks to the tongue and dissolves quickly.

Once the team fully overcomes challenges of designing the thin-strip vaccine, an easy and effective treatment system may become a reality. In addition, said Hai-Quan Mao, the design team’s advisor, it "would cost much less to store and transport than the liquid vaccine.”

—LiveScience Staff

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Credit: Will Kirk/Johns Hopkins University