The Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative (Radvac) has been doing some important work on bringing back and modernizing variolation.

While vaccines are clearly superior to variolation, variolation techniques can be applied immediately at the site of an outbreak. Vaccines, by contrast, take months to years to be developed, manufactured, tested, approved by the FDA, and deployed. During that time, viruses can spread and mutate, harming and killing many people.

Radvac believes that variolation deserves a new look — many scientific learnings from virology and immunology can be applied to make variolation safer and more effective. Here, Radvac co-founder and chief scientist Preston Estep reports on new self-experiments he conducted using hydrogen peroxide for virus inactivation and antibiotic ointment (neomycin) as an adjuvant. Two different delivery methods are explored - nasal insufflation and transdermal application using a cheap microneedle dermal roller. In a complementary whitepaper, Radvac has published detailed protocols for others interested in testing these methods. (link to the post below)