Spread of viruses
To understand how vaccines are helpful in protecting us from the harmful effects of vaccines, we must first learn what viruses do to the human body.
Viruses cannot survive alone, they need a host body to carry out basic functions. After entering a body they hook onto a host cell and insert their genetic material into it, gaining control over the cell. They then proceed to replicate rapidly before violently spilling from the cell and spreading to surrounding cells to repeat the same process. If not stopped, the virus eventually kills all its host cells, and in turn the body.
How vaccines work
Vaccines work by teaching the body how to defend itself against virus attacks. A vaccine is a similar but less harmful strain of virus. It usually barely harms the patient because it is administered in small doses and also due to the fact that is it alr killed and weakened drastically. When injected with the virus in the form of antigen-presenting cells, a T helper cell recognizes it as a foreign body and notifies other cells of its …show more content…
Many disease have been eradicated and a large majority of people have been immunised to most preventable diseases. They have greatly decreased the number of sufferers of many viruses. For instance in 1977, there were 57,345 reported cases of measles in the US and a vaccine was recommended for all children. After 8 years, it had dropped by 95% to 2,587 cases. They not only protect people who have been vaccinated but also people who have not. If a large part of a community is vaccinated and immunised, it decreases the number of possible transmitters of diseases and hence decreases the chance of infection to those who are unvaccinated. Its effects are long term too. By immunising and stopping the transmission of diseases today, they eradicate the diseases . This means future generations have no risk of getting infected even when