Vaccination

• Vaccination or immunisation involves giving you a vaccine made of a dead or inactivated form of a disease-causing microorganism
• White blood cells produce the specific antibody to destroy the pathogen
• Every cell has unique proteins on its surface called antigens. The antigens on the microorganisms that get into your body are different to the ones on your own cells. Your immune system recognises that they are different
• Your white blood cells then make specific antibodies, which join up with the antigens and deactivate or destroy that particular pathogen
• If you get infected by the same pathogen later on, your white blood cell cells recognise the pathogen and produce the correct antibody straight away
• The pathogen is destroyed without you even getting ill. You are immune to the disease
• If a large proportion of the population is immune to a disease, the spread of the pathogen in the population is reduced or even disappear. This is known as herd immunity
• If vaccination rates fall, the disease can reappear. In the 1970s, vaccinations for whooping cough fell from 80% to 30% and thousands of children got infected and many died