Vaccines In Vaccines

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Preventing serious infections by making a person immune to the infection is called immunization. This process is usually performed by the administration of a vaccine to stimulate the person’s immune system to protect them against a subsequent infection or disease. According to the World Health Organization (2016), more than 5 million deaths were prevented annually between 2010 and 2015 due to vaccinations that were used around the world. Vaccines work with the natural ability of the human immune system to develop immunity to fight disease. When a foreign infectious pathogen such as bacteria or a virus enters the body, it multiplies and becomes an infection and in many cases, this infection leads to an illness. To understand how vaccines …show more content…

The macrophages engulf and digest the foreign pathogens and leave behind parts of the pathogen called antigens that stimulates the immune system to attack them. The T-lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell that can recognize antigens that are not part of the human body (non-self) and attack the human cells that have been invaded by the pathogen associated with this non-self antigen. B-lymphocytes, another type of white blood cell, also recognize foreign antigens and produce antibodies that attack and neutralize the foreign antigens to fight the infection. When a new pathogen is first detected by the immune system, it can take up to several days for the immune system to properly coordinate all the different immune cells required to fight the infection (Understanding How Vaccines Work, 2013). However, once the infection has been eliminated, the immune system has the ability to remember all of the foreign antigens that have entered the body. The memory T-lymphocytes and memory B-lymphocytes will remember every antigen they have ever encountered throughout the human’s lifetime and are able to quickly respond and initiate the immune response if the same antigen is detected again. The immune system keeps a huge supply of “millions and possibly billions of different antibodies on hand to be prepared for any foreign invader by constantly creating millions of new B cells” (How Do Vaccines Work?, 2011). This process of antigen memory and antibody production is also called acquired immunity, and it the basis to understand how vaccines

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