This Flu Vaccine Patch Is Just As Effective As a Shot, Study Says

For those afraid of the flu vaccine – and the needle associated with it – there may be another alternative in your future. The best part? You might not even need to go to a flu clinic to get it.

Researchers have created a flu vaccine patch made up of dissolving microneedles. The Lancet published the findings Tuesday.

The patch functions like a bandage, but is covered with these dissolving microneedles that release the vaccine. The dissolving takes only minutes after placement on the skin.

What might make it even more appealing is that you could put the patch on yourself, and that the technology could be applied to other vaccines, according to Dr. Roderic I. Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. The group helped fund the study, along with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

For the study, researchers recruited 100 adults, split them into four groups and gave them an inactivated flu vaccine created for the 2014 to 2015 flu season. The four groups included:

• Health care providers administering the patch
• Participants self-administering the patch
• Health care providers administering an intramuscular injection
• Health care providers administering a placebo microneedle patch

No one had too serious of a reaction to the microneedle patches aside from some slight itching and redness for two to three days. The patch vaccines and intramuscular shot delivered similar antibody responses, and there wasn't a significant difference in the doses administered by the health care workers and those by the participants.

People in the study who got the shot instead of the patch weren't pleased, which aligns with the fact that more than 70 percent of those given patches said they liked this method over injection or nasal spray vaccines.

"They got so disappointed if they got the regular influenza vaccine. You could see it on their faces," study author Dr. Nadine Rouphael of the Emory University School of Medicine told NBC News.

NBC News cited several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, including that the flu was responsible for the deaths of 101 children this last flu season. During an average year,

approximately 40 percent of Americans get a flu vaccine despite the recommendation everyone over six months old must get one each year.

More clinical trials are slated for the future with the idea of making the patch – which can be kept at room temperature, Rouphael says – an option for patients, in addition to working on patches for vaccines like measles, rubella and polio.

"Microneedle patches have the potential to become ideal candidates for vaccination programs, not only in poorly resourced settings, but also for individuals who currently prefer not to get vaccinated, potentially even being an attractive vaccine for the pediatric population," according to commentary published along with the study.