This is a huge breakthrough that dramatically reduces the cost of transportation of vaccines. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 9 to 36 million cases of flu occur annually, resulting in 12,000 to 56,000 deaths each year.
Globally, nearly 20 million children are vulnerable to preventable diseases because they don’t get vaccines
A breakthrough by researchers at McMaster University could save lives around the world by making it easier and far cheaper to deliver fragile vaccines for deadly viruses such as Ebola and influenza to remote communities in developing countries.
The innovation is almost as easy “as stirring milk and sugar into coffee,” said Matthew Miller, an assistant professor in McMaster’s biochemistry department, who was part of the interdisciplinary team that worked on the project. The process involves combining sugars used for other purposes with the drugs, turning the temperature-sensitive vaccine into a lightweight sugary gel that can travel for long periods through harsh climates.
Globally, nearly 20 million children are vulnerable to preventable diseases because they don’t get vaccines, with one-quarter living in three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Transporting and storing vaccines is complicated because they need to be kept at low temperatures to remain viable – a system of constant refrigeration known as the “cold chain.” Warm weather and rough roads don’t just increase the risk the vaccines will fail, they also raise the price tag – in some cases, transportation alone accounts for 80 per cent of the cost of a vaccine program, Dr. Miller said.
At McMaster, a team of engineers and infectious-diseases scientists decided to look for a lighter, more travel-friendly solution. They had one already: an edible coating that had been previously created by chemical engineers at the university to extend the shelf life of fruit.
As researchers discovered, the same two ingredients – a pair of sugars called trehalose and pullulan, which are used to make the jelly coating on breath strips – could do the same for a delicate vaccine. Combine, stir and dry, and their work suggests that a vaccine would be able to travel safely and relatively cheaply in the sugary gel, protected from the heat for months. MORE
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