Can you vaccinate against bacteria

Understanding How Vaccines Work. Minus Related Pages. On This Page. Macrophages media icon are white blood cells that swallow up and digest germs, plus dead or dying cells. The macrophages leave behind parts of the invading germs called antigens. The body identifies antigens as dangerous and stimulates antibodies to attack them.

B-lymphocytes are defensive white blood cells. They produce antibodies that attack the antigens left behind by the macrophages. T-lymphocytes are another type of defensive white blood cell. They attack cells in the body that have already been infected. How Vaccines Work Vaccines help develop immunity by imitating an infection. Types of Vaccines Scientists take many approaches to developing vaccines.

These vaccines contain a version of the living virus or bacteria that has been weakened so that it does not cause serious disease in people with healthy immune systems. Because live, attenuated vaccines are the closest thing to a natural infection, they are good teachers for the immune system. Examples of live, attenuated vaccines include measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine MMR and varicella chickenpox vaccine. Even though they are very effective, not everyone can receive these vaccines.

Children with weakened immune systems—for example, those who are undergoing chemotherapy—cannot get live vaccines. Inactivated vaccines also fight viruses and bacteria. These vaccines are made by inactivating, or killing, the germ during the process of making the vaccine.

The inactivated polio vaccine is an example of this type of vaccine. Inactivated vaccines produce immune responses in different ways than live, attenuated vaccines. Toxoid vaccines prevent diseases caused by bacteria that produce toxins poisons in the body. In the process of making these vaccines, the toxins are weakened so they cannot cause illness. Weakened toxins are called toxoids.

When the immune system receives a vaccine containing a toxoid, it learns how to fight off the natural toxin. The DTaP vaccine contains diphtheria and tetanus toxoids. Subunit vaccines include only parts of the virus or bacteria, or subunits, instead of the entire germ. Because these vaccines contain only the essential antigens and not all the other molecules that make up the germ, side effects are less common. The pertussis whooping cough component of the DTaP vaccine is an example of a subunit vaccine.

Conjugate vaccines fight a different type of bacteria. These bacteria have antigens with an outer coating of sugar-like substances called polysaccharides.

Conjugate vaccines are effective for these types of bacteria because they connect or conjugate the polysaccharides to antigens that the immune system responds to very well. After receiving the second dose of the MMR vaccine measles, mumps and rubella or the standalone measles vaccine, Currently, the U.

Some parents worry that this number seems high, particularly since some of the diseases being vaccinated against are now extremely rare in the United States. Each disease for which vaccinations are recommended, however, can causes serious illness or death in unvaccinated populations, and might quickly begin to appear again if vaccination rates dropped. The United States has seen mumps outbreaks in recent years since vaccination rates have dropped, with severe complications and hospitalizations required for some patients.

And before the introduction of the Hib Haemophilus Influenzae Type b vaccine, Hib meningitis affected more than 12, American children annually, killing and leaving many others with seizures, deafness, and developmental disabilities.

After introduction of the vaccine, the number of deaths from Hib dropped to fewer than 10 per year. Each vaccine on the schedule continues to be recommended because of the risks posed by wild infection. Is natural immunity better than vaccine-acquired immunity? In some cases, natural immunity is longer-lasting than the immunity gained from vaccination. The risks of natural infection, however, outweigh the risks of immunization for every recommended vaccine. For example, wild measles infection causes encephalitis inflammation of the brain for one in 1, infected individuals.

Overall, measles infection kills two of every 1, infected individuals. In contrast, the combination MMR measles, mumps and rubella vaccine results in a severe allergic reaction only once in every million vaccinated individuals, while preventing measles infection.

The benefits of vaccine-acquired immunity extraordinarily outweigh the serious risks of natural infection. For more on this topic, see our Understanding Risks activity. Additionally, the Hib Haemophilus influenzae type b and tetanus vaccines actually provide more effective immunity than natural infection. Some offer lifelong immunity with only one dose, while others require boosters in order to maintain immunity.

Recent research has suggested that the persistence of immunity against a particular disease may depend on the speed with which that disease typically progresses through the body. My child was invited to a chickenpox party. Would it be better for my child to get the chickenpox this way? Why do we vaccinate against a mild disease like chickenpox? Before the varicella vaccine became available, however, chickenpox infections required 10, hospitalizations and caused more than deaths each year in the United States.

Exposing a child to wild chickenpox puts him at risk for a severe case of the disease. Even uncomplicated cases of chickenpox cause children to miss a week or more of school, with a caregiver missing work to care for the sick child. They can spread the disease to other people—not just other children, but also adults, who have a higher risk of complications from the disease.

Meanwhile, vaccination for chickenpox typically prevents future infection with the disease. In the rare cases where individuals do not develop adequate protection from vaccination to prevent future infection, chickenpox infection is typically mild, results in fewer symptoms, and ends more quickly than natural infection.

People with this mild form are contagious, however, and should take care not to expose others to the virus. And why do some vaccines have live pathogens but others have killed pathogens? Vaccines that are made with killed versions of pathogens—or with only a part of the pathogen—are not able to cause illness. When a person receives these vaccines, it is impossible for him or her to become ill with the disease.

Live, attenuated or weakened vaccines are theoretically capable of causing illness: because they can still replicate though not well , mutation is possible, which can result in a virulent form of the pathogen.

However, they are designed with this in mind, and attenuated to minimize this possibility. Reversion to virulent form is a problem with some forms of the oral polio vaccine OPV , which is why only the inactivated form IPV is now used in the United States.

It is important to note that attenuated vaccines can cause serious problems for individuals with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients. These individuals may receive a killed form of the vaccine if one is available. If not, their doctors may recommend against vaccination. In such cases, individuals rely on herd immunity for protection. As to why some vaccines contain live pathogens and others contain killed pathogens, the reasons vary by illness. However, generally speaking, live, attenuated vaccines generate longer-lasting immunity than killed vaccines.

Thus, killed vaccines are more likely to require boosters to maintain immunity. The medical community must weigh these trade-offs in deciding which approach to use against a particular disease. For example, the immunity passed from mother to child at birth is only temporary, and typically does not include immunity against polio, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type b, and other diseases that can be prevented by vaccination.

Unlike most vaccines, which contain the most common strains of a given pathogen if more than one exists and are rarely changed, the seasonal flu vaccine changes frequently, though one or more of the flu strains in the vaccine may be retained from one year to the next. This is because the strains of influenza viruses that circulate are constantly changing. Each year, researchers choose viruses for the vaccine based on which ones are likely to be circulating over the course of the coming flu season, thus providing protection against the most prevalent strains.

Herd immunity, also known as community immunity, refers to the protection offered to everyone in a community by high vaccination rates. This offers some protection to those who are unable to receive vaccinations—including newborns and individuals with chronic illnesses—by reducing the likelihood of an outbreak that could expose them to the disease. Why is allergy to eggs a contraindication to getting some vaccines? Some vaccines, including the majority of vaccines against influenza, are cultured in chicken eggs.

During the process of creating the vaccine, the majority of the egg protein is removed, but there is some concern that these vaccines might generate an allergic reaction in individuals with an egg allergy.

In most cases, only people with a severe life-threatening allergy to eggs are recommended against receiving egg-based vaccines. Your doctor can provide specific information. Vaccines do not cause autism. This possibility was publicized after a paper by a British physician who claimed to have found evidence that the MMR measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was linked to autism.

The potential link has been thoroughly explored; study after study has found no such link, and the original study has been formally withdrawn by The Lancet, which had originally published it. Studies were also done regarding the possibility of a link between the preservative thimerosal, which is used in some vaccines, and autism; again, no such link was found.

People say that vaccines are linked to long-term health problems such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and autism. Is that true? All vaccines have possible side effects.

Most, however, are mild and temporary. Adverse effects from vaccines are monitored thoroughly via multiple reporting systems, and there is no evidence from these systems to support these claims.

Why is vaccination recommended if it can cause all of these side effects? Every vaccine has potential side effects. Typically they are very mild: soreness at the injection site for a vaccine delivered via a shot , headaches, and low-grade fevers are examples of common vaccine side effects. Serious side effects are possible, however, including severe allergic reactions. However, the occurrence of these side effects is extremely rare.

Your doctor can explain the risks for individual vaccines in detail; more information is also available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While some possible side effects are serious, they are extremely rare. Vaccines protect against potentially fatal infectious diseases; avoiding vaccination raises the risk of contracting those diseases and spreading them to others. Vaccines are tested repeatedly before being approved, and continue to be monitored for adverse reactions after their release.

See our article on vaccine testing and safety for more information and details about this topic. The rubella vaccine virus that is included in the MMR measles, mumps and rubella shot is cultured using human cell lines. Examples of these claims can be found here , here , and here. Vaccines can be developed for bacterial or viral infections. Different types of vaccines include live, attenuated vaccines; inactivated vaccines; toxoid vaccines; subunit vaccines; and conjugate vaccines.

More information on how each kind works can be found here , provided by the CDC, and www. Vaccines have been successful in helping to eliminate diseases formerly prevalent in the United States. Viruses prevented by vaccines include polio, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and rotavirus.

Examples of bacterial infections prevented by vaccines include tetanus and pneumococcal disease here , here.