Description

Background

Vaccinations play an important role in prevention of diseases in children. Children often dislike going to a pediatrician, as they associate their visit with pain. A new field of research is the vaccine patch, which promises an almost pain-free vaccine application as well as further positive aspects of improved storage, distribution and safety. This paper provides an review of the effective mechanism and the advantages in the use of vaccine patches as well as their current status in clinical studies.

Methods

The literature cited was found by searching the PubMed, BIOSIS, and ISI Web of Science databases for the term ,vaccine patches”. Excluded were papers where other devices than patches with microneedles have been used for vaccination.

Results

This paper reviews data on the effectiveness of vaccine patches and other aspects such as safety, distribution and storage are described.

Conclusion

Vaccine patches have many advantages such as a safe application, a fast distribution, cost-saving in production and storage, and promise an almost painless vaccination. The effectiveness has been proved in animal studies, however, in humans there are no successful clinical studies at the moment.