Tag: immunity

The smallpox vaccine is made from the weekend virus called Vaccinia, which is another smallpox-type virus that cannot cause infections. This vaccine helps the body develop immunity to smallpox and thus successfully eradicate smallpox from the human population.

The smallpox vaccine is the only way to prevent smallpox. The vaccine is made from a virus either weakened or attenuated (has lost its ability to cause the disease), which is introduced into the blood. This helps in building the antibodies against the smallpox virus in the body. Smallpox was eradicated by this vaccination program, starting in 1967. 

The methods of administering vaccines is by inoculation, but some are given orally. A vaccine produces immunity to a disease by stimulating the production of antibodies.

Vaccines contain dead or alive but attenuated pathogens or toxoids consisting of microbial components. Vaccines is introduces into the body to stimulate the formation of antibodies by the immune system.

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material (a vaccine) to stimulate an individual's immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen. Edward Jenner administered the world’s first vaccination as a preventive treatment for smallpox. He took fluid from a cowpox blister, attenuated the cowpox virus and introduced it into the skin of James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy who is suffering from smallpox. A single blister rose up on the spot, but James soon recovered.

An attenuated vaccine is a vaccine created by reducing the virulence of a pathogen, but still keeping it viable (live). Attenuation takes an infectious agent and alters it so that it becomes harmless or less virulent. The technique of preparing vaccine from attenuated pathogen was first discovered by Louis Pasteur in 1879 against anthrax and rabies.

• Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) demonstrated that microorganisms cause both fermentation and disease, which support the germ theory of disease. He developed the earliest vaccines against anthrax.

• Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material (a vaccine) to stimulate an individual's immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen.
•  It is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases, widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio, measles, and tetanus from much of the world.
•  Edward Jenner discovered the process of vaccination in 1796 by introducing material from cowpox vesicle.