Bifurcated vaccinating needle, heat sealed in sterile packet
Production organisations
Precision Medical Products Inc.
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How do you wipe out a deadly disease? Two-pronged needles were essential to the World Health Organization’s campaign to eradicate smallpox worldwide. Cheap to produce and easy to learn to use, these needles were used to administer 200 million vaccines globally per year. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated in 1980
Before the invention of this bifurcated needle, a coordinated global programme to eradicate smallpox wasn’t really possible. This needle allowed for the vaccine to be simply carried and administered, even in remote places. The World Health Organisation (WHO) launched a programme in 1967 to eradicate smallpox through immunisation and observation. The last case of natural smallpox was observed in Somalia in 1977 and the disease was declared eradicated in 1980, in no small part thanks to this small but important technology.
Martin Schweiger, consultant in communicable disease control and public health, writes: “[The bifurcated needle] was a real game changer [and] made the eradication of smallpox possible. This was a short metal needle, about 2” long with one end flattened and split into 2 prongs. It would draw up a small amount of vaccine by capillary action into the gap between the prongs. When the prongs were then laid flat on the skin, the liquid transferred to the skin.
"The needle was then rotated through 90 degrees so the prongs pointed downwards. It was then jabbed up and down half a dozen times, a process that introduced a small amount of the vaccine into the top layers of the skin. That was the end of the vaccination, nothing else to do. The needle was then put aside to be boiled / sterilised and used many times.
"WHO supplied them in white plastic containers which served well to go out with the vaccinators. They were about the same size as modern urine sample bottles. These bifurcated needles made vaccination simple and safe."
