We all have used Vaccines more than ones in our lives and even cried while we got vaccinated. We were often told that it’s for our own good that we need the vaccines. All the pain & fear of injections is not in vain we’ll be in better health after vaccination.
I think we all wondered:
Table of Contents
What are vaccines?
How are they made?
What do they do?
Why do we need vaccines for few diseases and not all?
I’ll help resolving your queries about Vaccines.
What are vaccines?
Vaccines are the products that help the body’s immune system develop resistance against the disease so that you don’t get sick in the first place. it’s our first defense that we don’t develop the disease.
What do they do?
They act by stimulating the defense mechanism of the body by providing less virulent/ dead pathogen (Vaccine Antigen) to the body. The defense mechanism gets activated and attacks the vaccine antigen and kills it. During this process, our body develops the memory cells and stores them for the future. That’s how our body develops immunity to the pathogen with the help of a vaccine.
How are they made?
It’s a slightly complicated and requires the utmost accuracy and testing to get it just right. We need the right combination that doesn’t give us disease but triggers the immune mechanism too.
Why do we need vaccine for few diseases not others?
Vaccines are made for disease for which our body doesn’t have immunity and the diseases cause severe co-morbidities. To avoid the serious ill effects of the disease vaccines are created.
- Polio
- Measles
- Mumps
- Rubella
- Meningococcal Meningitis
- Flu
Most vaccines are created for viruses since our bodies could not develop immunity without severe life-threatening consequences of the disease.
Why is COVID-19 Vaccine essential?
COVID-19 is an RNA based Virus (animal origin) and our body can only process DNA so we’ll not develop resistance against it and since it’s rapidly evolving & very intelligent and it can beat any antibiotics we give it.
[Tweet “The only protection we have against COVID-19 is Precautions or Vaccine.”]
How long does it take for a Vaccine to develop?
12-16 months
How are vaccines tested ok for production?
Vaccine is given to a large population so it has to be thoroughly tested before release.
There are phases in trial:
- Exploratory: Lab experiments are done
- Pre-Clinical: Animal trial
- Phase 1: a small group of 20-80 people
- Phase 2: a larger group of a few 100 people
- Phase 3: given to 10000 & more people, the efficacy, action of vaccine is studied
- Phase 4: the after-effects of the vaccine are studied
One more term we have along with Vaccines is Herd Immunity. Let’s see what it is?
What is Herd Immunity?
Herd immunity is the immunity of the community because they’re vaccinated so the unvaccinated population has fewer chances of acquiring the disease.
let’s say >70% of people are vaccinated in the community & 30% are not so the chances of spread to that 30 % is very less when 70% community is vaccinated. this community has herd immunity. if the ratio is reversed then in the 70% people many would get the disease because only 30% are immunized the disease transmission is easy amongst unvaccinated people.
I hope my post has resolved a few of your queries for the rest feel free to message I’ll get back with the answer as soon as possible.
Be Safe Be Healthy
Disclaimer: This article is for reference purposes only, under no circumstances it should be used as a replacement of medical opinion by Professionals. Any decision regarding health and health care should be taken after professional advice only. Health care advice and information shared by the author are best to her knowledge. We disclaim all responsibilities for any inadvertent omission/ commission by the author or the website.
What an informative article. I have never heard of Herd Immunity before. I do hope that they will be able to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 soon. Will also be interesting to see how this will be implemented, once it is available.
Amen to that
Love this comprehensive post on vaccines. The detailed diagrams explain the concept clearly. Hope we vaccine for COVID-19 is available real soon so that we can keep this pandemic behind us and get back to our regular life. Thanks for this informative post, Richa. Appreciate it!
Good information on vaccines, their development process and benefits, Richa. It is going to be a while before an effective vaccine is developed for the present situation. Apparently the usual oral polio vaccine drive had to be postponed, I heard. Tough times!
we’ll get through it. One step at a time.