Have you ever notice where your little scar on your arm did or your thigh came from? It’s when you were first vaccinated. A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease (WHO). Vaccine is an introduction of a particular disease to our body for us to develop antibodies to “remember” it. The dosage is so little that we won’t even have that disease. Vaccine is either injected or taken for prevention or for worsening the damage to our body upon acquiring a particular disease.
The first developed vaccine was made by an English physician named Edward Jenner in 1796. He developed a vaccine to protect people from smallpox. Smallpox is an acute contagious disease, caused by the variola virus (WHO). It has killed millions of people back then when vaccines were not yet developed. The term vaccine was coined from the word “vacca” which means cow since Edward Jenner used the same disease that the cows had, called cowpox from his observation that the cattle handlers did not acquire smallpox. He then used the fluid of cowpox sore to introduce cowpox to a young boy which is a mild pox to humans. He later then expose the boy to smallpox and found out that the procedure is effective. Of course this type of experiment is not allowed nowadays for it is unethical.
Vaccines are important for prevention of acquiring some diseases proving that prevention is better than cure. Vaccines can reduce the risk of having a disease that may put someone’s life in danger. It makes our body to remember a particular disease for our body to be immune when we acquire that disease naturally.
Through time and with the development of technology we now have 7 different types of vaccines.
Live anttenuated vaccines are vaccines that contains live, anttenuated microorganisms that are sufficient enough to induce an immune response but insufficient to cause the actual disease. These vaccines are made or grown from foreign hosts such as animals. Embryonated eggs or tissue culture can also be used to grow pathogens that later will be developed to be vaccine, these vaccines maybe injected or taken orally. Benefits of this vaccine is it causes infection that lets our body to produce immunity that can fight almost the same infection as from the natural infection.
Killed vaccines are vaccines produced when it is unsafe to use live vaccines. These are preparations of the normal (wild type) infectious, pathogenic microorganisms that have been rendered nonpathogenic, usually by treatment with using heat, formaldehyde or gamma irradiation so that they cannot replicate at all (Sridhar Rao P. N. , 2006). These vaccines are safe to use for pregnant and immunodeficient persons and cheaper than live vaccines.
Subunit vaccines are vaccines that contain only purified antigens of whole organisms. These are safe to use for immunosuppressed people and can less likely induce side effects
Recombinant vaccines are produced using recombinant DNA technology or genetic engineering (Sridhar Rao P. N. , 2006). Those genes for desired antigens are then inserted into a vector. These vaccines are safe and easy to store but are costly.
DNA vaccines are vaccines that contain genetically engineered DNA for our body to produce antigens for our immunity.
Conjugate vaccines are vaccines are vaccines for capsulated bacteria.
Last is Anti-idiotypic vaccine An antigen binding site in an antibody (paratope) is a reflection of the three-dimensional structure of part of the antigen (epitope) (Sridhar Rao P. N. , 2006).
Vaccination is now encouraged by the Department of Health here in the Philippines. There are vaccines offered free for children because they are the ones who are more vulnerable to diseases. There are also vaccines that are being developed to prevent diseases, one of which is the newly developed Dengue vaccine that is a huge medical discovery and help for people for this known disease has taken so much life. Having vaccine is important for us to be healthy and for our well-being.
By: Timi T. Labandilo
