Despite a sluggish rollout so far, the EU aims to vaccinate three-quarters of its adult population by the end of summer and officials remain hopeful that if national delivery speeds up, many restrictions could be lifted in time for the holidays.
Researchers say the patch is cheaper and could be mailed out so that people could vaccinate themselves in the comfort of their own homes.
"If a parent says, 'I'm not going to vaccinate my child,' they are not simply putting their child at risk, they are putting everybody else's children at risk too.
In April, health officials declared the Americas the first region in the world to be free of endemic rubella, thanks to a massive, 15-year effort to vaccinate men, women, and children everywhere in the hemisphere.
