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A polio vaccine that can be stored as a dry powder at room temperature could be a new way to help eradicate the disease, say the researchers.
Although existing vaccines have helped eliminate polio in many countries around the world, including the UK, the highly contagious virus still circulates in populations of countries like Nigeria and Pakistan, where it can cause paralysis or even death.
However, oral vaccines use a weakened live virus that can sometimes turn into a version of the virus that can cause paralysis. The result is an incentive to introduce another type of vaccine called inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), which is an injection containing dead virus strains.
Although this has already occurred in many countries, one of the main barriers to widespread use is the sensitivity of IPV at temperatures above and below about 4 ° C (39.2 ° F).
The researchers now claim that they have managed to develop a method for lyophilizing IPV, so that it can be kept at high temperatures of up to 40 ° C for four weeks, and then dissolved for use – without losing its power.
"We have freeze-dried the inactivated polio vaccine and, during freeze-drying, we added ingredients that make it more stable," said Woo-Jin Shin, co-author of the Southern University of California report.
In the journal mBio, Shin and colleagues at the Southern University of California and a company called Integrity Bio Inc. describe how the formulation includes among its ingredients magnesium sulfate, histidine, an amino acid, and Mannitol sugar alcohol.
The researchers then stored the dried vaccine at different temperatures and examined the evolution of specific antigen concentrations over time. They also tested the vaccine on small groups of mice, both types of experiments suggesting a minimal change in vaccine potency four weeks, even at high temperatures.
Shin said he hoped the approach would be chosen by charitable foundations.
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