UK Edition
A British biotech company is planning to introduce needle-free Covid-19 jabs in a bid to boost vaccine take-up among those wary of injections.
Scancell has struck a deal to use kit made by PharmaJet, a medical technology company, which penetrates the skin with a precise stream of fluid instead - getting vaccines into the body in a tenth of a second. The method will be used in upcoming clinical trials for variant-busting Covid vaccines.
These springloaded systems save as much as 70pc of preparation and administration time compared with needles, Scancell said, with patients feeling a "snap like a rubber band when the injection is administered".
In a study by the University of Oxford in June, around a quarter of the 15,000 adults screened positive for potential needle phobia. The study suggested that those people who were wary of jabs were twice as likely to report being hesitant to get the Covid vaccine.
According to the study, removing injection anxiety in the population could persuade more than 10pc of vaccine hesitant people to come forward.
Britain's jab rate has slowed after massive demand left only those more hesitant behind. Misinformation campaigns about the vaccine on social media have played a part.
The Government has been attempting to turbocharge the roll-out by offering people incentives to get vaccinated, including discounts on Uber, Bolt and Deliveroo.
The booster campaign for vaccines is due to kick off next month, with those in more vulnerable groups given a third dose of the Covid vaccine.
While firms including Pfizer and AstraZeneca have been rolling out their vaccines for months, another wave of vaccine developers are now starting to come through with next-generation jabs.
Scancell, which is listed on the Aim junior stock market, is developing a "universal" Covid-19 vaccine intended to be variant-proof, meaning that patients would not need to get a tweaked version of existing jabs as the virus mutated.
The business's Covid vaccine candidate is set to enter into clinical trials later this year. These will first take place in South Africa and are then to be broadened to the UK if regulators approve.