Japanese medical professor has invented a new needle that supplies one painless dose of a vaccine
9 Mar, 2010
A brand new device has been invented to replace syringes. It delivers drugs into the human body without any discomfort or bleeding. The inventor of this vaccine device is a professor of pharmacokinetics, Kanji Takada. The device is a small round chip, just 1.5 cm wide and contains 300 micro needles, measuring just 0.5 mm long and 0.3 mm wide at the base. These needles can inject any type of vaccine into the body without breaking the dermis layer of the skin. They do this by penetrating the skin by only half a millimeter and then dissolving and delivering the vaccine into the body.
Many people are frightened of having to go and have a vaccine with today’s syringes and needles but this new device will make that a thing of the past. Unlike today’s syringes and needles, the patient won’t feel anything at all, making the process quick, simple and pain free. One day this new device may replace syringes and needles altogether.
Professor Takada has been developing this vaccine device for the last 6 years. There have been similar devices created in the past, made out of sugar. These failed because they degraded at temperatures above 100 degrees centigrade. In order to fix this problem, Professor Takada replaced the sugar with a water-soluble polymer. This means that when the vaccine device is pressed into the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin, it will dissolve, releasing the vaccine into the body.
Tests show that the new device does not affect the efficiency of the vaccine. It could be available for use in Japanese hospitals within 2 years. Hopefully it won’t be long until it arrives in the UK. Until then we have to use syringes and needles.
