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New Measles Vaccine in Development
By Roger Harrabin
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Researchers in Mexico have developed a vaccine spray that they believe could revolutionise the prevention of measles and rubella.
It has not yet been approved by regulatory authorities, but the latest research is being presented to the World Health Organisation this month. If it gets the backing of the WHO and support from manufacturers it could be available in 3-4 years.
The new method of administering the vaccine is strongly supported in principle by critics of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab like Dr Andrew Wakefield, the former specialist from the Royal Free Hospital in London. He controversially believes MMR may carry a slight risk because it involves injecting live virus into the blood.
The vaccine spray, on the other hand, enters the body through the natural route of the mouth and the nose, so very little of the virus gets into the blood.
Dr Jaime Sepulveda, who developed the method near Mexico City, says it has been tested on 2,000 children. The work has been done at the clinic that developed the highly successful oral polio vaccine.
Although the research is not yet published and peer-reviewed, it is exciting interest among some eminent immunologists. Professor Joseph Bellanti, director of International Immunology Centre at Georgetown University in Washington, says it is easier to administer than the jab. It enters the body via the natural route; it avoids needle and syringe; it creates fewer instances of side effects like fever and rashes; and it also engenders better immunity because it stimulates the mucosal immune system in the mouth and nose. The injected virus has its main effect on the body’s systemic immune system in the blood and muscles – but this is not the way the body normally encounters the wild virus.
The spray vaccine promises to have other advantages too, Dr Bellanti says. The measles jab cannot be given to children under a year because the blood antibodies they inherit from their mothers interfere with the vaccine - but the spray can be given when the baby is a few months old.
Dr Sepulveda has a dream that manufacturers will develop a device for administering the spray that is sufficiently light, cheap and small to be carried round villages in developing countries on the back of a bicycle. Measles currently kills hundreds of thousands of children in developing countries, but he believes that the spray could help attain the WHO target of eradicating measles worldwide.
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The spray could undermine
confidence in the MMR
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The MMR vaccine
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All children over 12 months
are meant to receive the
MMR vaccine
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