Leiden University: Five times more Covid vaccines from a vial with skin injection

Not ten but fifty Covid vaccines from one vial. This is possible if the vaccination is delivered into the skin rather than the muscle, research by internist and infectious disease specialist Anna Roukens from the LUMC has shown. EenVandaag reported on this important discovery, which could have huge implications for the global vaccination strategy.

Skin injections are nothing new, but it was unknown whether they also work for coronavirus. ‘Other vaccines, for rabies or tuberculosis for instance, have always been injected into the skin. That is often very efficient, so why wouldn’t the same be true for a Covid vaccine? I was surprised that this hadn’t been researched at all,’ says Anna Roukens. So she decided to research whether you can also administer Covid vaccines via the skin. The first results are very promising: only a fifth of the dose that is now administered to muscle produced enough antibodies in the test subjects.