VACCINATION BENEFITS AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

Running head: VACCINATION
Vaccination
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VACCINATION1
Summary
Vaccination is a procedure where a child is given a vaccine to protect him/her from a
specific kind of disease. Like polio vaccine is given to secure the child from polio. The
vaccination procedure was introduced in the 18th century (Plotkin, 2014). Vaccines are nothing
but the dead or damaged form of the disease-causing germ (bacteria or virus), which is put inside
the immune system of the body. In several stances, germs produce inactivated toxins which are
later used in the vaccine to create immunity. For this reason, the vaccines act cunningly by
tricking the human body in developing a strong immune system that will fight the infectious
illnesses, without causing the diseases (Lee et al., 2014).
The vaccination procedure or the vaccines are very old research, which can be dated back
to 200 years ago when smallpox was considered to be a very dangerous disease and people used
to fear it. In the book of Brunton, Glynn and Glynn (2005), it is noted that Emperor K'ang His in
the year 1600, was able to survive smallpox by grinding up smallpox scabs and blowing the
matter into the nostril. During the 18th century, Dr Edward Jenner saw that the workers who
were working in the farms had mild cowpox disease and they were immune to smallpox
(Rusnock, 2016).
The immune system in a human body is developed through special cellular components
and chemicals which are called antibodies. The antibodies must fight diseases. A human being
can gain immunity against any kind of infection through either naturally having that disease or
by immunisation procedure. The vaccines or the dead form of the disease-causing germ act as
antigens. The immune system reacts to these antigens as if they are a fully-fledged germ, and