Because of vaccination programmes, more children around the world live to see adulthood than ever before. In fact, the World Health Organisation explains that over the past fifty years, our global immunisation programmes have saved 154 million lives, with more children living to see their fifth birthday than ever before.

That’s a massive advancement, and one that parents and family members are forever grateful for.

And one of the many benefits of immunisation programmes is that if a high enough percentage of the population are vaccinated against a certain condition, herd immunity protects those around them who for whatever reason may not be vaccinated either. It’s a big win for everyone.

However, due to a range of factors from other health conditions to lack of access to medical facilities, and even fake news and scaremongering, unfortunately twenty per cent of children around the globe are not fully immunized against some of the many conditions and diseases that could claim their lives.

And of that twenty per cent, around half of the children received their first vaccine dose but not the entire series, with the other ten per cent not receiving any vaccines at all.

This presents something of a problem, since herd immunity is only effective with a high enough percentage of the population vaccinated. For some common conditions, for example, this number is 94%.

With this in mind, scientists at MIT have been working on technology that will cut vaccination series entirely, so that children only need to receive one dose of a particular vaccine, without the need for boosters. And with the development of specific microparticles for their vaccine technology, they have reached a breakthrough.

As detailed in a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, the microparticles in the vaccine have a delayed release function, meaning that children could be immunised with their first and second doses of a vaccine in one single injection, the doses releasing in stages over the ensuing months.

Their testing of the diphtheria vaccine on mice has proven that antibody generation is the same with this singular vaccine as when two separate doses of the traditional vaccine are administered.

And as they continue to develop their technologies – using a combined lab-based and machine learning approach – the scientists are experimenting with different polymers that would administer the immunization as required, but delay the release even further to account for vaccine boosters that are usually delivered a few months or even years apart. MIT’s Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang explained the complexity of this work in a statement:

“If we want to extend this to longer time points, let’s say over a month or even further, we definitely have some ways to do this, such as increasing the molecular weight or the hydrophobicity of the polymer. We can also potentially do some cross-linking. Those are further changes to the chemistry of the polymer to slow down the release kinetics or to extend the retention time of the particle.”

In addition, the team are working through a variety of vaccines to develop microparticles with suitability for all kinds of different vaccinations, including those with challenging pH levels.

With a future in which global vaccination rates are even higher, to support the protection of worldwide communities, the team are accounting for various challenges to vaccination, as MIT’s Ana Jaklenec continued:

“The long-term goal of this work is to develop vaccines that make immunization more accessible — especially for children living in areas where it’s difficult to reach health care facilities. This includes rural regions of the United States as well as parts of the developing world where infrastructure and medical clinics are limited.”

The other bonus to this developing technology? You’d only have to face the needle once.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about the mysterious “pyramids” discovered in Antarctica. What are they?