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How Do Vaccinations Prevent Disease?

Infectious diseases have plagued humans and other animals for as long as there has been life on Earth. Although we term some conditions as diseases (alcoholism, osteoporosis or emphysema for example), infectious diseases are brought about when microscopic organisms enter the body and affect certain systems. Polio affects the muscles, small pox affects the skin, and tuberculosis attacks the lungs and bones. Preventing these infections or curing them after infection is achieved with vaccinations.

  1. Immune System

    • The body has an immune system to fight and ward off invading microbes. When a virus or bacteria cell enters the body, it will be intercepted by immune system cells. These immune cells attach and attack the microbe so it cannot reproduce and spread the infection.

    Recognition

    • The immune system recognizes cells belonging in the body and micro-organisms that do not. This way the immune system does not attack blood or muscle cells. However, when a measles virus, for example, enters the body, the immune system reacts to the unknown and begins its attack on the infection.

    Natural vaccination

    • The body has a way of naturally vaccinating itself. When certain childhood diseases infect the body, it may take the immune system some time to overwhelm the infection and eliminate it. This is because the immune system does not immediately recognize the infecting microbes in time to react, so the microbes reproduce and spread through the body. Measles, mumps, chicken pox and other childhood maladies are the result. But the immune system is usually only fooled once. When it learns the characteristics and identity of the infection, the immune system will remember it until death. This is why these childhood diseases only infect once and rarely, if ever, again.

    Vaccines

    • Vaccine drugs do the same thing natural vaccines do but in a controlled and manufactured way. More serious and deadly diseases are introduced into the body with a vaccination. These diseases, however, such as polio, small pox, diphtheria, cholera, tetanus and typhoid, are very weak strains of the infection. The body's immune system is able to overcome the infections quickly but in the process learns to recognize the organism. When a strengthened strain of the disease infects the body later, the immune system reacts immediately and destroys the recognized infection.

    Limitations

    • It is an old saying there's no cure for the common cold. Other diseases with no known vaccine are AIDS, Ebola and certain types of flu, just to name a few. The complication in vaccinating against these diseases is the virus or vaccine is very complicated and able to disguise itself from the immune system. Learning how to break the disguise and creating a successful vaccine involves an incredible amount of research and years of laboratory work and testing.

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