How does vaccinations help

Vaccines, like any medication, can cause side effects. The most common side effects are mild. However, many vaccine-preventable disease symptoms can be serious, or even deadly. Although many of these diseases are rare in this country, they do circulate around the world and can be brought into the U.

Even with advances in health care, the diseases that vaccines prevent can still be very serious — and vaccination is the best way to prevent them. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link. Provider Resources for Vaccine Conversations with Parents.

Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. 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. COVID vaccines are not experimental. They went through all the required stages of clinical trials. Extensive testing and monitoring have shown that these vaccines are safe and effective. Getting vaccinated yourself may also protect people around you, particularly people at increased risk for severe illness from COVID Delta Variant.

Related Pages. How does the immune system work? It begins releasing antibodies to fight the germ — think of antibodies as soldiers designed to fight off the specific germ you have. This process can take a few days. The antibodies work to attack, weaken, and destroy the germ. Afterwards, your immune system remembers the germ. This protection against a certain disease is called immunity.

In many cases, immunity lasts your whole life. How do vaccines work? Which is safer: Natural immunity or immunity after getting a vaccine? Get vaccinated Getting vaccinated is easy. If vaccines have wiped out some diseases in the United States, can we stop getting vaccinated for them? Community immunity at work: Pneumococcal vaccines Pneumococcal disease can cause serious infections of the ears, lungs, blood, and brain.

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