EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT VACCINES

With Covid-19 vaccinations being a hot topic, and a lot of misinformation doing the rounds, we take a look at some facts.

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Surprisingly, vaccination is not a modern invention. Chinese records describe inoculation involving scratching matter from a smallpox scab into a healthy arm. Pinpointing the exact date is difficult, but according to history of vaccine.org, some sources claim this was as early as 200 BCE.

In the West, in 1796, Edward Jenner is credited as being the first person to administer a smallpox ‘vaccine’, using cowpox matter on an eight-year-old boy. Other killer diseases of the 1800s like rabies, cholera and tuberculosis were studied with a view to producing vaccines, with varying success. Louis Pasteur reported successful rabies vaccination in 1886 – a long gap from 1796. As knowledge about infectious diseases and our immune systems increased, more life-saving vaccines were produced.

HOW VACCINES WORK
Vaccines work together with our bodies’ own immune systems, basically by training them to recognise a virus (or bacteria) as something harmful that needs to be destroyed. Molecules on the virus (called antigens) need to be injected into the body to trigger the response. (Important to note: this is not injecting the virus into the body, and it does not cause you to get the disease. (See ‘Common myths’ below.) This means if we then encounter the virus again, the body recognises it and is ready to fight it early, before the disease can take hold.

Related article: How vaccinations have changed the world and saved lives

COUNTLESS LIVES SAVED
Vaccination has greatly reduced the incidence of serious diseases like polio, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough), in many parts of the world, saving millions of lives.

Smallpox, however, is the only disease declared by the World Health Organization to have been totally eradicated worldwide, in 1980. Sadly, measles was close to being eradicated in the USA, but came back with a vengeance after vaccination rates dropped after 2000. So, it’s vitally important for enough people to get vaccinated to reduce the impact of a deadly disease like Covid-19.

Related article: Taking a shot at almost forgotten diseases

DID YOU KNOW?
An August 2021 study by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that unvaccinated people are 29 times more likely to be hospitalised with Covid-19 than those fully vaccinated – and five times more likely to become infected.



COMMON MYTHS ABOUT VACCINES

• Vaccines cause autism.
  An article by a British doctor in 1997, suggesting that the mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine caused autism, seems to have started all the fears about vaccines. Many antivaxxers still believe this even though it has been disproved and the doctor lost his licence to practise because of the false report.
• Vaccines infect people with the disease they are being vaccinated against.
  Some people get flu-like symptoms after being vaccinated, but this is their immune system reacting to the vaccine, not the infection setting in. However, it’s better not to be vaccinated if you’re not well – rather wait until you feel better, to avoid more severe symptoms.
• Vaccines contain microchips that can track our location.
  Do we really need to go there? Our cellphones track our location anyway, so why would anyone want to add microchips to a vaccine – surely an extremely expensive activity (if it is even possible?) – least of all Bill Gates.
• Vaccines can change our DNA.
  This myth originated because one of the coronavirus vaccines contains a fragment of the virus’s RNA, but this has no effect on human DNA, so we can’t possibly be ‘manipulated’ by a vaccine.

Related article: The importance of being vaccinated against measles