Health reporter,BBC News

A vaccine patch could cut out the need for painful needles and boost the effectiveness of immunisation against diseases like flu, say US researchers.

The patch has hundreds of microscopic needles which dissolve into the skin.

Tests in mice show the technology may even produce a better immune response than a conventional jab.

The patch has hundreds of tiny needles

Writing in Nature Medicine, the team of researchers said the patch could one day enable people to vaccinate themselves.

Each patch, developed by researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, contains 100 “microneedles” which are just 0.65mm in length.

They are designed to penetrate the outer layers of skin, dissolving on contact.

To test the technology, the researchers loaded the needles with an influenza vaccine.

One group of mice received the influenza vaccine using traditional hypodermic needles and another group were vaccinated with the patch.

Patches that had no vaccine on them were applied to a third group of mice.

Three months down the line the team found the patch appeared to produce a more effective immune response in mice, then infected with the flu virus, than a standard vaccination.

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Botox has been approved as a preventive treatment for chronic migraine by UK drug regulators.

It comes after a trial of more than 1,300 patients showed success in reducing the frequency of headaches.

But only patients who suffer headaches for at least 15 days a month, half of which come with migraine symptoms, are eligible, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said.

Chronic migraines can dramatically

impair quality of life

It is thought around 700,000 people in the UK get chronic migraines.

Migraine charities said many of those would not have been properly diagnosed and that some patients can really struggle to find a treatment that works.

Injections of botox, or botulinum toxin, are more commonly associated with smoothing out wrinkles.

It is not exactly clear why it may work in chronic migraines but it is thought that, as well as being a muscle relaxant, it may work to block pain signals.

In clinical trials, patients were given up to five courses of injections of botox into specific head and neck muscles every 12 weeks.

After 24 weeks, those treated with Botox had fewer days with a migraine than those who received a placebo injection.

By one year, nearly 70% of those treated with Botox had a 50% reduction in the number of migraines compared with before the trial.

The final results were published in Headache in May this year.

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A new study suggests there may be more likely dangers lurking in the bathroom.

Scientists in the US used an ultra sensitive method to detect bacteria in shower-heads in bathrooms across the country.

Results showed that around 30 per cent of shower-heads had “significant amounts” of Mycobacterium avium, a bacterium linked to breathing illnesses that most often infects people in poor health but can also cause illness in healthy individuals.

These bacteria are often found in water. However, in shower-heads the bacteria tend to clump together to form a slimy “biofilm”, at a concentration more than 100 times greater than is found in ordinary water.

Professor Norman Pace, who led the study, said: “If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy.”

These results may also provide an explanation for the rise in Mycobacterium avium infections in recent years, coinciding with people preferring showers over baths.

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Drinking several cups of tea or coffee a day appears to protect against heart disease, a 13-year-long study from the Netherlands has found.

It adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting health benefits from the most popular hot drinks.

Those who drank more than six cups of tea a day cut their risk of heart disease by a third, the study of 40,000 people found.

Consuming between two to four coffees a day was also linked to a reduced risk.

While the protective effect ceased with more than four cups of coffee a day, even those who drank this much were no more likely to die of any cause, including stroke and cancer, than those who abstained.

It is still not clear what difference milk

makes to the health benefits.

The Dutch tend to drink coffee with a small amount of milk and black tea without. There have been conflicting reports as to whether milk substantially affects the polyphenols – believed to be the most beneficial substance in tea.

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