The article explores a brief history of vaccine routes and digs deeper into the question, 'why vaccines are not injected intravenously (IV)'. While reading the article you may notice that the reason is not only scientific but it also has sociological, empirical, immunological aspects and hence vaccines have been administered intramuscular (IM), subcutaneous (SC), oral/ nasal or intradermal but never intravenously. Brief History of Vaccine Routes In the initial years, vaccines such as smallpox were given by scarification of the skin. Over the years, when more systematic approaches were developed depositing vaccines in the skin became routine.
Once needles arrived in the market, subcutaneous injections became possible. It was further observed that the vaccines like diphtheria and tetanus could induce strong immunogenic response when adsorbed on aluminum salts. And hence, this became the…
