-
Asked by to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
-
anon answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Vaccines work by introducing a small amount of bacteria into you. Your body then recognises the bacteria and tries to fight it. In order to fight it, it has to produce things called antibodies. Consider antibodies the disease-fighting cells in your body! It can take a while for your body to work out which antibodies to produce, but when it’s managed it once, it’ll be able to do it time and time again. So by making your body produce antibodies with a really small amount of safe disease, it’ll be ready for when the disease strikes for real. By protecting a baby right at the beginning of its life, there’s no risk of it catching TB whilst it’s growing.
-
-
Daren Fearon answered on 17 Jun 2014:
The BCG vaccine for TB is what is called an attenuated strain of the bacteria. This means it has been treated in a way that has resulted in it losing its ability to infect the person the vaccine is given to. This vaccine activates the immune system which can then develop something called antibodies which recognise the bacteria. So in future if you are infected with the infectious strain of the bacteria your body knows what it is and knows how to fight it off.
In the later stages of pregnancy the mother passes her antibodies onto the new baby so the baby is born with some immunity to diseases. This immunity is only temporary though and the baby has to start making it’s own antibodies. Therefore, it is important to give babies vaccines so they can make these antibodies and have immunity to different diseases.
-
Lynne Thomas answered on 17 Jun 2014:
I can’t answer this any better than Jenny and Daren. But vaccines have made a real difference in reducing the occurance of a good number of diseases so they are really important.
Comments