Vaccine
What is a vaccine?
It is a drug for artificially acquiring immunity against infectious diseases by utilizing the immune function of living things, especially for infectious diseases for which antibiotics (substances that block the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria) do not work. It is effective.
Humans can acquire immunity when pathogens such as viruses and bacteria actually enter the body, but this causes symptoms for each disease.
However, vaccines weaken only the pathogenicity (= ability to develop pathogen diseases) and have only the part that the living body recognizes the pathogen (= antigen), so putting this in the body will make it bigger. You can get immunity without any symptoms.
Taking advantage of this and vaccination before getting an infectious disease is called vaccination. The methods include oral administration, intradermal inoculation, subcutaneous inoculation, and intramuscular injection.
Origin of the name of the vaccine
The name vaccine is said to be derived from the Latin word "vacca" which means cow.
This is because the first vaccine in the world, a vaccine against smallpox, was obtained from cows.
(For more information on the world's first vaccine, see the "Immune x History" article in "About Immunity.")
Vaccine type
There are three main types of vaccines used: live vaccines, inactivated vaccines, and toxoids.
A live vaccine is a vaccine that is effective for a long period of time because the pathogen is kept alive and the pathogenicity is weakened.
Inactivated vaccines use some of the bacteria and viruses that have lost their pathogenicity and are not at risk of contracting an infectious disease.
Toxoid is a vaccine that eliminates the toxicity of toxins produced by pathogens and has the ability of living organisms to create immunity.
Each vaccine
Vaccines for each infectious disease can be divided into the three types introduced in "Vaccine Types".
・ Those classified as live vaccines
Measles (measles), rubella, chickenpox (chickenpox), mumps (mumps), BCG (tuberculosis), etc.
These may be accompanied by mild fever and rash after vaccination, so immunocompromised patients with weakened immunity and pregnant women should not be vaccinated.
・ Those classified as inactivated vaccines
Hepatitis B, influenza, Japanese encephalitis, cervical cancer, etc.
They can also be taken by immunocompromised patients, but they are less persistent and require multiple doses.
・ Those classified as toxoid
Tetanus, diphtheria, etc.
Toxoid is a vaccine used when the toxins produced by bacteria are the essence of pathogenicity.
Vaccine to be inoculated
Vaccinations that are classified as type A diseases such as measles and rubella are called regular vaccinations and are recommended by law to be vaccinations that everyone should receive. Vaccination is very important because it can reduce the severity of infectious diseases, which can easily become more severe as adults and affect the unborn child. Depending on the municipality where you live, you may be able to receive a subsidy, so check the website of the municipality when you receive it.
Vaccine limits
Not everyone who has been vaccinated is immune.
When I actually examined the blood, I should have been vaccinated when I was little, but my body is not very immune now! There are many examples.
Let's look at a real example. First, let's look at the following two tables.
This table shows the degree of immunity found by a blood test. The higher the EIA titer under each disease, the better the antibody is attached.
〇Situation
Subjects A and B are both college students and have been vaccinated against chickenpox-shingles-and-mumps at an early age.
Mr. A has been infected with chickenpox, but Mr. B has never been infected.Both Mr. A and Mr. B have never been infected with mumps.
〇 Analysis
It can be seen that Mr. A clearly has more immunity to chickenpox than Mr. B. On the other hand, mumps is not as different as chickenpox.
Take a look at the following table.
〇Situation
Both Mr. A and Mr. B were additionally inoculated with an immune vaccine against infectious diseases that showed low values.
〇 Analysis
Mr. B's chickenpox immunity level is higher than before, though not as much as Mr. A's.
You can also see that the numbers for mumps are higher than before for both of them.
The immunity of the infectious disease that I had once had was firmly attached. However, even if you are not fully immunized, vaccination can increase that value.
According to the investigation, of course, it seems that there are individual differences, and it seems that there are some people who get antibodies with one vaccination and some people who do not get enough even if they hit it many times.
Including such a background, it is also important to check whether you have antibodies firmly through a blood test.
* The data in the table is posted with due consideration given to personal information after explaining the purpose to both subjects and obtaining permission.
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