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Vaccine Innovation Prioritisation Strategy
The Vaccine Innovation Prioritisation Strategy (VIPS) Alliance is a supranational collaborative initiative. The VIPS Alliance consists of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, PATH, UNICEF and the World Health Organization.1)
Activities
Microarray patches
In May 2020, the VIPS Steering Committee selected and recommended three vaccine-related innovations to prioritize in order to increase uptake of vaccines. Microaray patches (MAPS) were identified as the highest priority (the other two were “heat-stable and controlled temperature chain qualified vaccines”, and barcodes on primary packaging).2) During the second half of 2020 and into 2021, the VIPS Working Group published a five-year plan to develop these MAPS.
MAPS are small devices that “consist of an array of hundreds to thousands of micro-projections on a patch or backing. These micro-projections can be coated with, or are composed of, vaccine in a dry formulation.”