What is Vaccine?
Vaccine is a type of substance (virus or bacteria) that is introduced into the body of a person from an animal to create immunity to a certain disease or to cure an infection already installed.
The immunity created through the vaccine is based on the body’s ability to react to infectious agents by producing antibodies that fight these agents.
When a person or animal is vaccinated against a certain disease, they become immune to that disease.
The first vaccine was discovered in 1978 by the English physician Edward Jenner in his observations of the influence of cowpox on people who milked infected animals. Incidentally, the word “vaccine” derives from the Latin term “ vaccinae ”, which means “from the cow”.
Jenner observed that the infectious agent of cowpox, when in contact with the human organism, provoked its immunity to this disease.
Other important vaccines were discovered later: against rabies (developed by Pasteur in 1885), against poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis), cholera, yellow fever, hepatitis, measles, typhus, tuberculosis, influenza, and, also, against diphtheria, whooping cough and rubella (triple vaccine).
Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent many vaccine-preventable diseases. The vaccination campaigns promoted by the Ministry of Health aim to control (or even eradicate) diseases in Brazilian territory.
List of Acronyms Related to Vaccine
