Treating, Curing and Preventing Disease

• Vaccinations allow protection against specific diseases, but the level of protection depends on the amount of people vaccinated.
• Vaccines contain substances containing disabled antigens of a particular disease, usually administered via injection.
• Vaccines stimulate the body to produce antibodies to provide immunity against that disease.
• Vaccines allow a dead or altered form of the disease causing pathogen to be introduced into the body, which contain a specific antigen.
• An antigen is a protein on the surface of a substance (often a pathogen) that triggers an immune response.
• The immune system, specifically the white blood cells, produce complementary antibodies to target and attach to the antigen.
• During the primary infection, the antibodies slowly increase, peak at around ten days and then gradually decrease.
• A second exposure to the same pathogen causes the white blood cells to respond quickly in order to produce lots of the relevant antibodies, which prevents infection.