Health experts in India will begin clinical trials to determine the efficacy of the first dry powder inhalable vaccine for measles next year, according to a report.

Presented at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington on Sunday, the report points out that measles sickens millions of infants and children, and kills almost 200,000 annually in India.

Dr. Robert Sievers, who leads the team that developed the dry-powder vaccine, said that it was a perfect fit for use in back-roads areas of developing countries, which often lack the electricity for refrigeration, clean water, and sterile needles needed to administer traditional liquid vaccines.

"Childhood vaccines that can be inhaled and delivered directly to mucosal surfaces have the potential to offer significant advantages over injection. Not only might they reduce the risk of infection from HIV, hepatitis, and other serious diseases due to unsterilized needles, they may prove more effective against disease," he said.

"Many serious infections, such as the measles virus, can enter the body through inhalation. Measles vaccine dry powders have the potential to effectively vaccinate infants, children and adults by inhalation, avoiding the problems associated with liquid vaccines delivered by injection," he added.

Sievers, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, has revealed that he took inspiration for the new vaccine from research on how people inhale tiny airborne droplets of air pollutants.