The Concept of Vaccination - Types of Vaccinations and Their Impacts on the Immune System, Newer Types of Vaccines in Development - Essay Example

The Concept of Vaccination Student’s Name Institution Date The Concept of Vaccination Introduction Vaccination can be defined as the act of making the body more immune to various disease causing microbes. The process of vaccination helps to boost the body’s immune system by strengthening its natural ability to fight against various disease causing germs and bacteria that weaken the body. Vaccination is important because it makes the body more resistant to both serious and minor illnesses before they reach the chronic stage. As a result, a person’s immune system in the body is adequately prepared to fight off unfamiliar germs and bacteria he gets exposed to in a variety of environments. Common vaccinations which are carried out on humans help to protect them from polio, yellow fever, diphtheria, measles and whooping cough. These vaccinations help to guard the body against deadly illnesses which can cause death within a short period of time (Ciolli 2008). Vaccines contain dead cells of disease causing microbes which are inserted into the body to protect it against live disease causing organisms. After they get injected into the immune system, the body repels them and since they are dead, they cannot cause any harm to a person’s health. Subsequently, any type of exposure to active live cells of disease causing microbes in the body is well handled by the immune system (Ehreth 2003). The body gets conditioned to repel any diseases that it gets exposed to and as a result, a person becomes immune to different types of diseases in various environments. This makes a person stronger and better protected against various types of illnesses. Vaccination is a preventive health measure that helps to reduce the costs of seeking curative care (Alberts, Johnson, Lewis, Raff, Roberts &Walters 2002). It helps to reduce contagion in a particular place because when everyone in the community is vaccinated, chances of passing on disease from one person to another are minimised. Types of Vaccinations and Their Impacts on the Immune System Vaccinations can either be passive or active. Passive vaccinations protect the body’s immune system temporarily from various disease causing microbes. During passive vaccinations, an individual passes on antibodies to an unimmunized individual which protect him from various diseases. However, these antibodies only provide temporary immunity and once they get destroyed, a person is vulnerable to various disease causing organisms (Colgrave 2006). Passive immunisations are either passed on naturally or artificially. For instance, antibodies can be passed on from a mother to a child in the foetus during pregnancy. In many instances, globulin and antivenin serve as artificial passive immunisations because people pool their antibodies to serve as vaccines against various disease causing germs. As a result, they are able to rely on the pooled resources to eliminate a particular disease facing people living in an area (Zanders 2011). Active vaccinations take place when an individual who is not immunised gets exposed to a disease causing organism. After this exposure, a person’s immune system starts developing mechanisms to protect the body from getting harmed by the pathogen. As a result, a person gets long term immune safeguards against specific disease causing microbes. Active immunization can either occur naturally or artificially (Ochei & Kolhatkar 2008). One of the most common examples of natural active vaccines that occur in the body is its ability to prevent influenza causing microbes. After a person becomes exposed to influenza virus, the body starts developing its own mechanisms to ward off any influenza attack. As a result, a person becomes immune from any influenza causing microbes as he grows older. Artificial active immunisations are those antibodies which are injected into people’s bodies as dead cells of disease causing germs and microbes (Poland &Schaffner 2007). They are used to protect the body against different types of diseases. There are different ways in which vaccines are stimulated to provide immunity to the body against various disease causing microbes. For a vaccine to have the desired effect, the immune system needs to find out whether the cells that have been injected into it are harmful or safe. The first detection in the body is done by B- cells which recognise small sections of antigens that help the body to detect if it is immune to different microbes (Temte & Campos-Outcalt 2007). Harmful bacteria and germs use the body’s nutrients and tissues to get a safe haven to reproduce and this makes it difficult for the body to perform various important functions. As a result, they weaken the body making a person immobile and fatigued (Alder, Rogozin, Iyer, Glazko, Cooper & Pancer 2005). Various components of the innate immune system are able to react to this challenge by binding themselves to disease causing antigens and make them less harmful to the body. Innate immunity helps the body protect itself against various disease causing microbes. Various body cells surround such microbes and neutralise their ability to harm the immune system thereby preventing diseases from occurring in human bodies. Specific immunity allows the body to offer a specific response to disease causing microbes that infect the immune system (Andre 2003). For instance, in the human body there are T and B white blood cells which are used in the immune system to counter any form of threat from disease causing organisms. As B cells mature, they advance and produce antibodies. Antibodies are normally targeted at various antigens which find their way into the body through different processes. When the antibody enters the immune system, the B cells rely on T cells to give them a signal about the presence of antigens (Poland 2009). Afterwards, the B cell is able to produce the necessary reaction to neutralise the microbe to ensure it does not cause any harm to the body. The manner in which a viral or bacterial antigen is neutralised in the body depends on various inbuilt defence mechanisms in the immune system. A viral antigen is surrounded by MHC I protein and after wards taken to a CD8 cell which provides immunity to the body (Nelson & Masters 2006). A parasitic or bacterial antigen is surrounded by an MHC II protein and then it is taken afterwards to a CD4 cell, which provides specific immunity against it. Both MHC I and MHC II proteins perform crucial functions in making the immune system well equipped to handle different types of threats that prove dangerous to the health of the human body system. As a result, the body is well placed to deal with different types of health conditions that are likely to cause human beings to suffer from poor health (Janeway, Travers, Walport & Shlomchik 2001). Examples of Various Types of Vaccines There are various types of vaccines which help the human body ward off various types of diseases. Live vaccines are used to tackle various maladies such as measles, mumps and chicken pox. Vaccines for these diseases are produced in laboratory settings and they contain dead cells of disease causing pathogens which harm the natural immune system found in the human body (Todd & Spickett 2011). Live vaccines are mainly created by viruses because they have a small number of genetic materials and it is easier to control their disease causing characteristics. Live vaccines are stored in refrigerated temperature conditions to prevent viruses from replicating in number before they are introduced into immune systems of targeted recipients. This ensures they stay in their weakened or dead state (Koff, Kahn & Gust 2007). People who have very weak immunity cannot be given live vaccines because they are likely to mutate and reactivate disease causing pathogens in the body causing recipients to suffer from various sicknesses. Inactivated vaccines do not require refrigeration and they are produced when a disease causing organism gets destroyed by radiation, chemicals or heating processes. This makes the vaccine more stable and it can be transported in protected systems to various destinations. For instance, some influenza vaccines are inactivated and are used to deal with the influenza virus in human immune systems (Nichol 2003). Inactivated vaccines are weak and they are not capable of dealing with disease causing pathogens in the long term. A person needs constant periodic shots of inactivated vaccines to ward off disease causing pathogens from attacking his body. It is necessary for people who have been given inactivated vaccines to be kept under close monitoring to protect them from different types of disease causing pathogens. Subunit vaccines are used to protect the body from hepatitis B. They use a few antigens and as a result, they do not have extreme negative reactions to the body. It is more difficult to know the specific antigens which need to be included in the vaccine. There are specific parts of antigens which antibodies that provide immunity against this disease recognise and bind themselves to (World Health Organization 2007). Toxoid vaccines are used to protect the body against tetanus and diphtheria infections. They contain formalin which neuters bacterial pathogens by using formalin. The formalin kills all these bacteria and makes it difficult for them to consume various tissues in the body thereby eliminating their ability to cause various diseases. They make it difficult for bacterial vaccines to cause harm to the immune system in the body. Conjugate vaccines help to protect the body against haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) pathogens. Antigens that come out of a microbe are taken to polysaccharides which form an outer shell on disease causing microbes to repel them and weaken their ability to cause harm. This vaccine is mainly used to protect infants to gain immunity from different types of harmful microbes. The conjugate vaccine is developed by linking antigens from a microbe that a baby’s immune system can easily decode to polysaccharides (Clem 2011). Since an infant’s immune system is still immature, the combination helps it to react to polysaccharide outer shells to protect against bacteria that cause diseases in the body. Newer Types of Vaccines in Development There are various types of vaccines which are still being developed. Several DNA vaccines are being tested to find out how they can advance immunity in human bodies. Scientists argue that DNA vaccines will be able to get rid of disease causing organisms by altering their genetic components. These vaccines will rely on DNA chosen for specific harmful microbe antigens to make the body immune to them. Genetic scientists have discovered that when particular microbe antigen genes are implanted in the body, some body cells absorb the DNA introduced. Afterwards, body cells produce antigens after being made to do so by the DNA previously implanted (Reisner 2012). If this scientific discovery yields expected results, human body cells will be capable of producing their own vaccines to protect the body from being exposed to various diseases. DNA vaccines which are being tested on human bodies are expected to provide immunization against pathogens that cause influenza, herpes and HIV. Recombinant DNA vaccines are also being developed to fight bacterium X in the human body. These use virus and bacteria to implant microbe DNA to human body cells to make them immune to different types of diseases. Viruses normally attach themselves to cells and insert various materials into them. Scientists are using this process to take large genomes of harmless viruses which are then inserted into other microbes. Recombinant vector vaccines imitate an infection in the immune system and they help safeguard it from further harm. Attenuated bacteria also serve as carriers that prevent the immune system from getting infections. The bacteria when implanted into body cells imitate harmful microbes and they enable the body to use its immune system to repel it (Boloursaz 2012). Its genes allow it to show antigens of other microbes which exist on the surface. In conclusion, vaccination helps to protect the body against different types of immunity. Advances being made by various scientific studies will help to protect people from various types of diseases that affect people. More efforts need to be made to improve healthcare service delivery in different communities to ensure more people get immunised to protect them from common diseases. References Alberts, B, Johnson, A, Lewis, J, Raff, M, Roberts, K & Walters, P 2002, Molecular biology of the cell, Garland Science, New York. Alder, MN, Rogozin, IB, Iyer, LM, Glazko, GV, Cooper, MD & Pancer, Z 2005, ‘Diversity and function of adaptive immune receptors in a jawless vertebrate’ Science, vol. 310, no. 5756, pp. 1970–1973. 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