Vaccines can be delivered through the skin using ultrasound. This method doesn’t damage the skin and eliminates the need for painful needles. To create a needle-free vaccine, Darcy Dunn-Lawless at the University of Oxford and his colleagues mixed vaccine molecules with tiny, cup-shaped proteins. They then applied liquid mixture to the skin of mice and exposed it to ultrasound – like that used for sonograms – for about a minute and a half.
Sitting for a minute and a half, not including prep and cleanup, or just getting stabbed a little. shrug
Edit: To save the next half dozen people exclaiming “needles!” the trouble. I would refine my point to, “great to have the option but I imagine it as being more of a fallback than the beginning of a new era”.
Also stops a lot of medical waste
The needle or the ultrasound, seems like the prick might be less waste
I don’t think there would be any need to dispose of any part of the ultrasound system; perhaps a disposable paper or plastic cover to speed up cleaning between patients. Meanwhile the needles are single use and must be disposed of properly since they are a bio-hazard. Can’t really see how a needle could possibly compete on the waste side of things.
Yeah, maybe he was talking about something else because it’s hard to see what would be worse than used needles.
How?
Needle phobias are extremely common, and the thing about phobias is that you’re fully aware that the fear isn’t coming from a rational place, which is part of what makes them so frustrating to deal with.
Lol yeah when I get vaccinated the anxiety fully fades the moment the needle enters my arm.
Some people are afraid of the needle
I’ll take it over having a sore arm for a day or two.
Getting a shot isn’t a big deal, but neither is sitting for five minutes.
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It’s not just the time we’ve saved here. Think of people on insulin that have to take shots multiple times a day.
The medical implications of this are massive it is absolutely a game changer.
If it ever comes into fruition.
We’ll have to wait and see how this impacts anything that needs to be injected deeper than skin level, which is why the focus is on vaccines.
It’s certainly less time effective if administering vaccines to large populations at once, but the increased antibody generation could absolutely make it worth it. Don’t know much about these things, but could mean the difference between two jabs and one 1.5 minute appointment.
Maybe one way of looking at it might be : this would be safe enough you could trust people to self-administer, and you could therefore take the professional with the needle out of the equation.
90 seconds of one person’s time has got to be better than the quick jab by two people, no?
Depending on how specific the injection needs to be, there are a number of scenarios in which people can self-administer injections. So, ignoring people who physically can’t self-administer, it isn’t that dramatic a change.
I can’t help but feel that the professional would be even more necessary to administer this correctly and not just waste a treatment/dose doing it wrong, whilst under the illusion that you did it right. Along with the specialised equipment needed for it in the first place. Needles and doses at least are pretty easily self-contained and if it is suitable for self application just “pointy end goes in fat bit of you”.
Naturally it’s early days, so it’ll be fascinating to see how this develops.
I agree! Auto injectors aren’t cheap compared to ye olde trusty ampule and syringe, and this might push the costs towards the higher end again. I can see a kids-and-the-latex-allergic edge case scenario.
Can’t wait to see what develops 😄
I don’t think any amount of de-specializing would be enough to trust the ignorant and/or malicious masses could or would self-administer adequately.
You’re right. Can’t just post them to folks and expect 100% uptake. It might widen the possibilities of more people getting more vaccines, though. In my books, this can only be a good thing.