Researchers develop inhalable measles vaccine

Measles, a highly communicable disease, can be easily be transmitted across any nation, with WHO stating, ''Measles is one of the most readily transmitted communicable diseases and probably the best known and most deadly of all childhood rash / fever illnesses.''

Researchers have been long been trying to develop and effective vaccine against measles and according to new research it would be possible to administer the vaccine a dry, inhaled powder.

According to Robert Sievers, from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado-Boulder, delivering vaccines in the conventional way, with needle injections, posed some serious challenges,
especially in resource-poor parts of the world.

He said one need not worry about needles; one does not need to worry about reconstituting vaccines with clean water.  One also need not to worry about disposal of waste or other vaccine wastage issues; and dry delivery was also cheaper.

According to Sievers, vaccine manufacturers already made measles vaccines as a powder, however, hospitals added water in order to make the vaccine injectable.

Sievers and his team have developed the inhalable dry powder measles vaccine (MVDP), which also has other advantages like it obviates the need for liquid storage and lowers or eliminates the chances of cross contamination which could happen during the reconstitution of the older vaccine with water.

Measles, a childhood disease causes problems with the respiratory, skin and immune systems.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 600 confirmed cases of the measles from January until October of this year, which were the highest numbers the CDC had seen since 2000.

According to WHO records, the virus killed almost 146,000 people last year mostly  children, Tech Times reported. 

Two trials were conducted by the researchers in which the powder showed similar results to the vaccine injection. According to News Every Day, the powder vaccine can be delivered with just a puff of air.

"MVDP was well tolerated in all subjects. Most subjects had high baseline measles antibody titer which limited ability to measure the serologic responses, and may have limited the adverse events following vaccination," the researchers reported in their study.