A 40% dose of intra-dermal inactivated polio vaccine achieved non-inferior antibody responses in HIV patients compared with a full dose administered intramuscularly, according to the results of a randomised controlled trial.
A Healio report quotes researchers as saying: "We conducted this study in HIV-infected adults because they have suboptimal responses to many vaccines even with well-controlled HIV infection, a finding felt to be related to chronic immune activation. Consequently, we felt that this population could function as a surrogate for populations in the developing world with suboptimal vaccine responses."
The researchers evaluated the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in 231 adult HIV patients with well-controlled disease viral load. At baseline, there was 87% immunity against polio serotype 1, 90% immunity against serotype 2, and 66% immunity against serotype 3. At the follow-up visit, there was a median 64-fold increase in antibody titers. The vaccine response to 40% intra-dermal IPV administration was similar to that of full-dose intramuscular IPV and yielded higher antibody titers, although this increase was not significant.
More local adverse effects, such as itching or redness at the injection site, were seen with the intra-dermal delivery, but systemic effects such as fever or rash were low in general and did not differ significantly between groups.
According to the researchers, these findings may offer a potential option for offering the IPV vaccine to patients in developing countries.
[link url="http://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/vaccine-preventable-diseases/news/online/%7B61f271ba-2e95-4ffc-8dc0-a646a0769d89%7D/smaller-ipv-dose-yielded-noninferior-titers-in-hiv-patients"]Full Healio report[/link]
[link url="http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/01/07/infdis.jiu841.abstract"]Journal of Infectious Diseases abstract[/link]