Without a refrigerator
A new way to store and transport vital vaccines
Canadian scientists have invented a stable and inexpensive way to store antiviral vaccines. The active ingredients of the drug are covered with a sugar "gel" – with such a shell, they remain viable and can be stored for eight or more weeks at temperatures up to 40 ° C. The new method will allow vaccines to be delivered to poor and remote regions – for example, the Ebola vaccine to the affected regions of Africa, according to the university's website. A description of the development appeared in an article published in the journal Scientific Reports (Leung et al., Thermal Stabilization of Viral Vaccines in Low-Cost Sugar Films).
Researchers say that combining a vaccine and two simple sugars – pullulan and trehalose – is almost as simple as adding cream and sugar to coffee.
The storage technology was created by chemical engineers from McMaster University, who own the development of an edible coating for fruits and vegetables that can extend their shelf life.
The invention can replace the current, inconvenient, method of storing medicines in the cold. Today, to preserve the viability of antiviral vaccines, it is necessary to maintain a temperature of 2 to 8 °C. It is possible to deliver the vaccine to some regions only in mini-refrigerators on solar batteries, which are carried by camels. At the same time, it is transportation that accounts for 80% of the cost of the medicine.
"You can spend all the money on developing a vaccine, but if it is deactivated by a high temperature an hour before you can give it to someone, it doesn't matter," says Ali Ashkar, one of the study's authors, a professor of molecular medicine.
For the new method of storing vaccines, instead of a bulky refrigerator, a tiny single-dose container filled with a sugar "gel" is used, which dries out, sealing the vaccine.
Figure from an article in Scientific Reports – VM.
Later, doctors restore the medicine with water and inject it to patients as usual. At the same time, the technology adds only insignificant costs to the preparation of the vaccine and eliminates almost all the costs of its transportation.
The method has shown its effectiveness in the experiment with mice. Scientists dried viral vaccines with a shell of DNA (herpes simplex virus type 2) and RNA (influenza A virus) in a mixture of pullulan and trehalose. The results of these studies showed that the first vaccine maintained its effectiveness for at least two months of storage at 40 °C, while the inactivated influenza vaccine was able to maintain its immunogenicity for three months of storage at 40 °C. The researchers are now working with a commercial partner to bring the technology to market.
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