US-based PharmaJet, a company that strives to improve the performance and outcomes of injectables with its enabling needle-free injection technology, has announced that their Tropis intradermal (ID) delivery system was used in the latest World Health Organization’s (WHO) polio eradication campaign in Pakistan recently.
The supplemental immunisation activity (SIA) campaign for children between 4 and 59 months of age was implemented in two regions in the Quetta block (Pishin, Quetta, Kila Abdullah, and Chaman) and Karachi (Central Karachi, East, East-Gujro, Keamari, Korangi, Malir, and West). Tropis was used to deliver fractional dose inactivated polio vaccine (fIPV) in parallel to oral polio vaccine (OPV) administration as part of a WHO recommended strategy to boost humoral immunity.
Evidence from Tropis use in poliovirus campaigns and routine immunisation in Pakistan, Somalia, and Nigeria, demonstrated improved coverage, acceptability, speed of administration, and cost savings. Previous WHO campaigns that vaccinated over 10 million children in Pakistan and Somalia showed that Tropis is an effective and preferred solution for polio immunization campaigns that can help increase campaign coverage by over 18%.
In addition, a recent randomised controlled implementation study in Nigeria demonstrated that among those vaccinated with Tropis, IPV2 coverage was more than 11% higher compared to those treated with the Standard of Care (SoC). The study team also found potential for up to 47% decrease in total immunization costs and 95% of healthcare workers expressed a preference for Tropis compared with the SoC. Tropis is the first and only needle-free ID delivery technology to achieve WHO prequalification.
