Vaccination

Vaccination is the process of administering weakened or dead microbes to patients, with the intent of conferring immunity against a targeted form of a related disease agent. In other words, vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to stimulate a protective immune response that will prevent disease in the vaccinated person if contact with the corresponding infectious agent occurs subsequently. Thus vaccination, if successful, results in immunization: the vaccinated person has been immunized.

In practice, the terms vaccination and immunization are often used interchangeably. The term Vaccination was coined by Edward Jenner and adapted by Louis Pasteur for his pioneering work in vaccination. Vaccination (Latin: vacca—cow) is so named because the first vaccine was derived from a virus affecting cows: the cowpox virus, a relatively benign virus that provides a degree of immunity to smallpox, a contagious and deadly disease.


Disease prevention


Vaccination is a highly effective method of preventing certain infectious diseases. In terms of public health, prevention is better and cost-effective than cure. Vaccines are generally very safe and adverse reactions are uncommon. Routine immunization programmes protect most of the world’s children from a number of infectious diseases that previously claimed millions of lives each year.

However, vaccines have not yet been developed against several of the most lifethreatening infections, including malaria and HIV/AIDS. Vaccination despite their success in preventing disease, vaccines do not fully protect 100% of the recipients.