Vaccination. The principle behind which vaccines work is that it contain germs that are weak or dead thus they dont make a person sick. Having these germs in our system triggers our immune system
When foreign substances (antigens) such as germs enter out body, our immune system recognizes them. In return they “produce the right antibody to fight the antigens.” (Kelly) Vaccination is “a disease-causing agent that is given to a person in a killed or weakened form (or in the form of proteins genetically engineered to look like a disease-causing agent), in order to stimulate the production of antibodies to fight off the disease.”(Gazis-Sax) It protects us from specific diseases and “boosts [our] body’s own defense system” (What is vaccination…) which is also known as the immune system.
The principle behind which vaccines work is that it contain germs that are weak or dead thus they don’t make a person sick. Having these germs in our system triggers our immune system to make antibodies to fight off these antigens (foreign substances). Our body can obtain antibodies through two main sources: active immunity and passive immunity. Active immunity is when our body makes our own antibodies and it “always leads to memory cells and thus provide long term immunity” to the antigens (286 Damon). Memory cells are located in the immune system they are also known as white blood cells or lymphocytes. There are two main types of memory cells T cells and B cells. T cells “activate the immune system and directly attack pathogen,” (what is a memory cell) were as B cells “produce substances called antibodies, which can disable and kill pathogens.”(What is a memory cell?) These cells present in vaccines “do not respond immediately when [they] first encounter an antigen” (Memory Cell) but rather they initiate a secondary response when the same antigen attacks for the second time. This way the immune system is more effective and more rapid. Primary immune response is our 1st line of defense when our immune systems produces antibodies by b-lymphotyes cloning themselves through meiosis and are specific to the antigen in our bloodstream. Vaccines aim to produce a weakened strand of a certain antigen into our body to create primary immune defense.
