With the introduction of the various Covid-19 vaccines, there are a lot of misconceptions about how effective these vaccines are and the duration for which they will protect us.
At Panacea Medical and Wellness Centre, our primary goal is your safety, and in furtherance of this goal, we are listing the below information so that people are aware of what exactly it means to be vaccinated and how the vaccine will help bolster one’s immunity. However, before we can understand how vaccines impact our immunity, we must first understand what a vaccine truly is and what it is meant to do.
What is a Vaccine?
A vaccine is a safe, simple and effective way to protect yourself against harmful diseases before you come into contact with them. They bolster your body’s natural defenses, building a resistance to specific diseases and illnesses. Most vaccines operate in a fairly simple way- they imitate an infection- but almost never cause illness- and train your immune system to create antibodies when faced with the virus or bacteria. This ensures that your immune system is adequately prepared if it is ever brought into contact with the live pathogen.
How Does a Vaccine Work?
As mentioned above, a vaccine works by stimulating your immune system, working with it to build protection in case it is ever exposed to the actual pathogen. However, this can happen in several different ways. The most common ways in which a vaccine works are:
- Helping the immune system recognise the invading pathogen.
- They help the immune system produce antibodies. Antibodies are proteins produced naturally by the immune system to fight disease.
- Once the immune system is exposed to a pathogen, it remembers the disease and how to fight it. If you are then exposed to the germ in the future, your immune system can quickly destroy it before you become unwell.
The human immune system is designed to remember pathogens that attacked it in the past. Once exposed to one or more doses of a vaccine, you typically remain protected against a disease for years, decades or even a lifetime. This is what makes vaccines so effective. Rather than treating a disease after it occurs, vaccines prevent us from getting sick in the first instance.
What is Herd Immunity
Herd Immunity refers to the ability of the population in a particular area to slow the spread of a disease thanks to a large percentage of the population having achieved immunity, whether this immunity is the result of having taken a vaccine or because they have been exposed to the virus and their immune system has generated the antibodies necessary to fight it.
When a significant portion of the population has become immune to a disease, it slows the spread of the pathogen. For example, if 75% of a population is immune to chickenpox, then even if one person gets it and meets 4 other people, only one of them is likely to get it, as the others all have antibodies that are prepared to fight the pathogen as soon as it enters their system. In this manner, the spread of a disease is slowed, allowing authorities to fight it without having to worry about the majority of the population contracting the disease in that area.
The Strengths and Drawbacks of Vaccines
Vaccines are one of the biggest advances that modern medicine has provided, allowing us to live in large towns and cities without facing a proportional increase in the rate of spread of many diseases and illnesses. They have allowed us to eliminate certain diseases from many regions entirely and provide our immune system with ammunition against pathogens. However, it is important to remember that vaccines do not always provide blanket immunity or 100% protection and that it is important to ensure that once a vaccination is administered, we continue to remain vigilant and are not lulled into a false sense of confidence, as this could ultimately prove to be a contributing factor in contracting a disease. Some vaccines may cause mild side effects too. Talk to your doctor before you take a vaccine so you are aware of the schedule of that vaccine, precautions you must take and side effects if any that particular vaccine may cause.