Why Vaccinate?
- Vaccination will prevent illness in an individual by providing artificial immunity
- Vaccination involves exposing an individual to the antigens of a pathogen in some form, triggering an immune response which results in the formation of memory cells which can make antibodies against it
- If a vaccinated individual is infected with the pathogen, they can destroy it before they become infectious
- Consequently, vaccines reduce the likelihood that an infected individual will spread the pathogen they have been vaccinated against to others
- If a large number of the population are vaccinated, it is unlikely that an unvaccinated individual will become infected with the pathogen
- This is the principle behind the idea of herd immunity
- There are three main scenarios with vaccination:
- There are no vaccinations and the disease spreads quickly
- Some of the population are vaccinated and the disease spreads to less people
- Most of the population are vaccinated and this prevents the spread
Herd immunity protects the vulnerable that may not be able to have the vaccine
Worldwide vaccination
- The role of the WHO is to monitor global diseases, they will track if a disease is endemic, epidemic or pandemic
- The importance of vaccines cannot be underestimated:
- The number of people with measles worldwide is increasing even though there is a vaccine
- The increase is due to a drop in the vaccination rate globally – there was some controversy over the MMR vaccine in 1998 and the number of vaccinations dropped significantly after this
- Vaccines have reduced drastically the cases of diseases worldwide
Vaccination statistics table
Data source: ourworldindata.org/vaccination
Advantages & disadvantages of vaccination table