Vaccine adjuvants - Current status and prospects on controlled release adjuvancity

The strategy of World Health Organization is to develop efficient and inexpensive vaccine against various infectious diseases amongst children's population. Vaccination is considered as the most cost effective health intervention known to public. Since 90 years various substances have been added in vaccine formulation but still alum is considered as the safest adjuvant for human use licensed by United States Food and Drug Administration. MF 59 and ASO4 are the adjuvants were developed recently and approved for human use. Due to poor adjuvancity, conventional vaccines require multiple recall injection at approximately time intervals to attain optimal immune response. For past approximately two decades the vaccine research has been focused towards the alternation of alum type of adjuvant in order to increase the immunogenicity. The development of new vaccines, is more efficacious or easier to deliver, or both have become an area of research that can certainly benefit from controlled release technology. Especially, the conversion of multiple administration vaccine into single administration vaccine may represent an improved advancement towards the betterment of human health care and welfare. Biodegradable polymer microparticles have been evaluated for delivering antigens in native form, sustained release keeping in mind the safety aspects. In this article we review the overall concept of adjuvants in vaccine technology with special focus towards the prospects of controlled release antigens.