The Pros And Cons Of Vaccination

Vaccination is an extremely controversial topic. No matter your opinion about vaccination, one thing is for certain. The choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate is a decision that has the potential to greatly impact the health of you and most importantly, your children for the rest of their lives.

How do vaccines work?

Primary response: an antigen is detected in the body and is identified, T cells and B cells are activated, cytotoxic T cells kill the infected cells and B cells produce plasma cells that secrete antibodies to bind with the antigen, neutralizing it.

This takes a long time and to have the body go through this process every time an antibody is detected would not be efficient, Luckily the secondary response comes into effect where

No worries!

Small pox, diphtheria and polio were 3 of the main diseases effecting people, until the implementation of vaccination programs.

Smallpox: an airborne virus or by direct contact, enters the body through throat and lungs, causes a high fever and a blistering rash which can appear all over the body. It is often fatal. Recorded to have first appeared over 10,000 years ago and spread around populations by explorers and traders. Introduced into Mexico in 1519 killing millions of people, 1789 it spread to Australia having a devastating impact on aboriginal communities.

Each year until 1968, there were 10-15 million cases of smallpox, resulting in 2 million deaths. Small pox has killed more people than any other infectious disease.

Devastating impact isn’t it…

But in 1796 Edward Jenner developed a vaccine for smallpox, although it wasn’t affected due to not being used widely. So small pox continued to be a problem in a mass of countries, until the WHO committed itself to a worldwide mass immunization, program involving routine mass immunization, the program proved to be very successful and in 1979 WHO declared that it had eliminated the virus and eradicated the disease of smallpox

Transmitted by close contact with respiratory droplets. Starts with a sore throat, fever and rapid pulse, then the destruction of the lining of the throat and the form of a leathery membrane across the throat. Death caused by suffocation or from toxins produced.

100 years ago it was referred to as “the deadly scourge of childhood” with mortality rates at 90%. With 206000 cases and 15500 deaths in the USA alone in 1921. A vaccine was released in 1923 but it wasn’t until much later in the 1940s that numbers infected reduced, immunization programs were introduced to Australia in the 1940s, which lead to a rapid decrease in the incidence of diphtheria. Although in 1974 only 5% of children worldwide were immunized, until the introduction of WHO EPI saw that figure grow to over 80% of worldwide population vaccinated resulting in a greatly decreased mortality rate world