British scientists have made a breakthrough which allows vaccines to be stored for years without refrigeration, it emerged today.

The development could transform public health programmes in the Third World, cutting costs and reducing wastage.

In poor countries, vital vaccines frequently fail to work or have to be thrown away because they have been spoiled by not being kept cold enough. Wastage accounts for a high proportion of the £17 cost per jab to protect against childhood illnesses.

The new technology uses a natural process seen in living organisms like the desert-dwelling resurrection plant, which dries up completely in drought conditions, only to burst into life when rain arrives, tens or even hundreds of years later.

Dr Bruce Roser, of Cambridge Biostability, today said that trials on animals had gone very well, and clinical trials of the procedure on humans could be started within three years.

He explained how the resurrection plant survives over long periods in the absence of liquid thanks to a sugar which becomes as hard as glass when dry.

"They use an unusual but simple sugar which has the property of turning into a thick syrup when it dries out, rather than crystallising," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"We have taken this technology and made it work on the lab bench. We have put these vaccines in a solution of this syrup.

"We dry it and it turns into a syrup which becomes more and more viscous as we remove more and more water until imperceptibly it solidifies as a glass.

"It is very similar to fossilised insects trapped in amber which are preserved for millions of years."

The technique has already been tested on four commercial vaccines, which were found to be "stable and efficacious" in animal trials.

The Cambridge-based company has received a grant of £950,000 from the Department for International Development to develop a five-in-one vaccine for children in developing countries.

It is hoped that the new technique may allow 10 million more children worldwide to be vaccinated within existing budgets.

The new vaccine - against measles, rubella, tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria - will be manufactured by Panacea Biotec, based in Delhi, a leading Indian biotechnology company.

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