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Gates Helps With Measles Immunity

By John Casey | Tuesday, August 18, 2009 12:57 PM ET

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Measles infects millions of infants and children in India every year and kills 200,000, according to a report put out by the American Chemical Society on a new, inhalable form of measles vaccine that is scheduled to enter clinical trials in 2010.

This would be the first dry powder, inhalable vaccine for measles. In rural areas that do not have electricity to refrigerate injectable vaccine, a powder vaccine may make it possible to further reduce the range of this deadly disease. Major funding for the vaccine came from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, which helps administer money for the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Robert Sievers, who is with Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, led the team that developed the vaccine.

"Childhood vaccines that can be inhaled and delivered directly to mucosal surfaces have the potential to offer significant advantages over injection," Sievers said in the report. "Not only might they reduce the risk of infection from HIV, hepatitis, and other serious diseases due to unsterilized needles, they may prove more effective against disease."

To create an inhalable vaccine, Sievers and his team invented a patented process in which weakened measles virus is rendered -- through complex chemistry -- into an inhalable powder given to people through a small "plastic sack, with an opening like the neck of a plastic water bottle." The person takes a deep breath through the sack, and, presto, measles immunity is gained.

Sievers estimates that the vaccine would cost 26 cents per dose. And if the vaccine makes it through trials, the Serum Institute of India expects to make as many as 400 million doses a year.

Photo courtesy of American Chemical Society

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John Casey is a New York-based health and science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, WebMD.com, Parade magazine, CBSHealthWatch.com, Self magazine, and other publications.