Vaccination

• Vaccination


  Introducing small quantities of dead or inactive forms of pathogen into the body
• The dead or inactive pathogen in the vaccination cannot lead to the disease in the patient
• How vaccines work


  1. White blood cells are stimulated to produce antibodies against the dead or inactive pathogen

  2. White blood cells divide by mitosis to produce lots of copies of themselves

  3. Copies of white blood cells can stay in the blood for decades

  4. If the same pathogen enters the body later, the white blood cells can produce the correct antibodies quickly to prevent infection
• Vaccination


  Directly protects us from infection by pathogens
• Antibody level


  • Rises very quickly to a very high level when the real pathogen invades the body, due to the vaccination
• It is really important that a very large number of people are vaccinated against pathogens
• Herd immunity


  When enough people are vaccinated, it also protects unvaccinated people because the pathogen cannot spread