Think of vaccines and you probably wince. But odds are, if the first vaccine were invented today, it'd be prick-and pain-free. The needle-syringe combo is notoriously challenging: Vials need to be kept cool, sharps must be safely disposed of and never reused, and half-full vials get thrown out to avoid contamination. Since an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of 5 die each year from diseases covered by existing vaccines, researchers are experimenting with more flexible methods to get inoc-ulators into the body. As if we needed an excuse to say good-bye to shots.
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