The micro-needles on the patch dissolve when they’re exposed to the water in your skin cells, and you’re vaccinated without any pain at all. The team found that when they used the MicroHyala to deliver flu vaccine, it was just as effective as using needles.
This isn’t one of those far-off technologies that might come one day in the next decade. Doctors have already been testing the vaccine patch on humans, and the results are great: it leaves a little red mark for a few days, and then completely disappears.
Plus, it can be administered without any training. Osaka University biotechnologist Shinsaku Nakagawa, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement that this will make the MicroHyala “particularly effective in supporting vaccination in developing countries”.