What is immunization? List two diseases against which vaccines are available.
Answers
protetcing against disease
BCG
and chiken pox vaccine
What Is Immunization?
When you get sick, your body makes antibodies to fight the disease to help you get better. These antibodies stay in your body even after the disease is gone, and protect you from getting the same illness again. This is called immunity. However, you don’t have to get sick to develop immunity. You can gain immunity against disease through immunization.
Immunity through immunization
Immunization (or vaccination) protects people from disease by introducing a vaccine into the body that triggers an immune response, just as though you had been exposed to a disease naturally. The vaccine contains the same antigens or parts of antigens that cause the disease, but the antigens in vaccines are either killed or greatly weakened. Vaccines work because they trick your body into thinking it is being attacked by the actual disease.
Immunity through immunization happens without the consequence of being ill and without the risk of potential life-threatening complications from the disease. Once a person is immunized, specific immune cells called memory cells prevent re-infection when they encounter that disease again in the future. However, not all vaccines provide lifelong immunity. Vaccines such as the tetanus vaccine require booster doses every ten years for adults to maintain immunity.
The WHO lists 26 diseases for which vaccines are available
- Measles
- Rubella
- Cholera
- Meningococcal disease
- Influenza
- Diphtheria
- Mumps
- Tetanus
- Hepatitis A
- Pertussis
- Tuberculosis
- Hepatitis B
- Pneumoccocal disease
- Typhoid fever
- Hepatitis E
- Poliomyelitis
- Tick-borne encephalitis
- Haemophilus influenzae type b
- Rabies
- Varicella and herpes zoster (shingles)
- Human papilloma-virus
- Rotavirus gastroenteritis
- Yellow fever
- Japanese encephalitis
- Malaria[6]
- Dengue fever[7]