Are you worried about your children’s health? Do they get sick from infectious diseases like the flu very often? If yes, the best way to protect them is for them to get vaccinated. Vaccines are biological preparations that help boost your immunity. If you’re wondering how vaccines work, whether they offer lifelong immunity, or why are they important, keep reading! Get all the answers on how vaccines support natural immunity in this article. Reach out to us on https://doralhw.org/contact-us/ for a consultation with the best infectious disease doctors in Brooklyn, New York.
How does your immune system function?
Your immune system always monitors your body, and whenever any invading germ comes in contact with the immune system, it responds to it. This is called an immune response. During this response, your immune system releases antibodies to fight the germ. This process can take a few days or months, depending on the type of germ you are dealing with.
Later on, your immune system remembers the germ, and if it invades again, your body recognizes it quickly and releases the right antibodies to fight it off and prevent you from getting sick. This protection against a certain germ or disease is called immunity.
Vaccines help the body to learn how to fight off certain germs that our body usually fails to fight off on its own. Certain pathogens (disease-causing germs) are so strong that the immune system is not able to fight them off with its antibodies. Here, vaccines come in handy.
Vaccines are made of dead or weakened pathogens or parts of them that cause that certain disease. When you get vaccinated, your body’s immune system sees the pathogen and starts releasing antibodies by understanding it. These antibodies are made with the help of special proteins that know how to spot the weak points of the pathogen and destroy it. These antibodies can last for a long time in the body.
So, due to practice and understanding of weakened pathogens in the vaccine, when the real pathogen enters the body, your immune system knows how to fight them off by releasing the same antibodies. This way, vaccines provide your protection from the disease-causing germ and help you fight it off quickly if you get infected. This protection is called immunity. And the way vaccines make us immune or resistant to diseases is called immunization.
Vaccines are very important because they protect millions of kids and adults from dangerous diseases and save many lives. They can help people and communities to avoid infection and even help to prevent certain types of cancer. Due to widespread use of vaccines, certain diseases like diphtheria are nearly extinct. It also reduces the rate of certain cancers, like cervical cancer (since the HPV vaccine became available).
Some diseases have become so rare now that people may wonder if vaccines for them are still needed. But most of these diseases still exist in the world, so it is crucial to get vaccinated to get protection from those conditions until they become extinct worldwide. Another thing, vaccines also help to protect people whose immune system is weak and not eligible to take vaccines due to several reasons. If their surrounding people are vaccinated, they can protect them. It’s called herd immunity.
Do childhood vaccines provide lifelong immunity?
The answer is, it depends. The immunity provided by the vaccines will last, depending on the vaccine.
- Some vaccines, like the measles vaccine (requires two shots) and hepatitis B vaccine ( a series of shots), may make kids immune for their lifetime.
- Other vaccines like the tetanus vaccine and whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine only last for a few years; however, you can have booster shots to boost protection for further years, when needed, to keep children from the disease.
- Some vaccines, like the flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine, need to be updated from time to time because these viruses are constantly changing, so the vaccines also need to be updated to provide protection and need to be taken often. Like, you need to take the flu vaccine year after year to maintain the protection from the flu. Last year’s flu shot can’t protect you from this year’s flu.
When only a few people in the community are vaccinated, it increases the chances of outbreaks (when more people get sick with a disease than expected in that area).
Vaccines support your natural immunity and help to make the immune system stronger to fight off infections and diseases that can cause serious illness. Make sure your child gets all the important vaccines and booster doses on time to get the necessary protection from infections. Want to stay updated on vaccines and vaccination schedules? Book your appointment now, call us on + 1-718-367-2555 to get treated! Learn more about infectious diseases at www.doralhw.org. and stay up to date on current health topics and new research, on recent infectious diseases like COVID-19. If you need help, register your information and make direct contact with our doctors at https://yuz88hfiyh7.typeform.com/Doralintake. Or visit us at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212.
