Prevention is Better than Cure.
This analogy is widely used and wholeheartedly followed and believed by most of us. The day we are born our doctor starts to take some preventive measures to make our body immune to what’s waiting for us in the outside world. There are a lot of infections and viruses our body is unable to create immunity against. So, what do we do? How do we fight against (on a biological level) these life-threatening infections and viruses?
This is where the word ‘Vaccine’ comes to play. Vaccines did not begin with the first vaccine–Edward Jenner’s use of material from cowpox pus to provide protection against smallpox. It began with the long history of infectious disease in humans, with early uses of smallpox material to provide immunity to that disease.
Evidence states that the Chinese employed smallpox inoculation as early as 1000 CE. It was practiced in Africa and Turkey, before it spread to Europe and the Americas. Edward Jenner’s innovations, begun with his successful 1796 use of cowpox pus to create immunity to smallpox. Over the period of next 200 years, his innovation was bettered, which resulted the total eradication of smallpox. We
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How can one define a vaccine? What is the body’s natural mechanism against infection? How many types of Vaccines are out there?
Vaccines contain the same antigens (or parts of antigens) that cause diseases. For example, polio vaccine contains poliovirus. But the antigens in vaccines are weakened to the point that they don’t cause disease. However, they are potent enough to make the immune system produce antibodies that lead to immunity. The person gets protection without having to get sick. Through vaccination, people can develop immunity without suffering from the actual diseases that vaccines prevent.
Vaccines facilitate the human immune system to create a ‘natural’ resistance against a disease. It triggers the immune system to make antibodies against the virus introduced in the