Vaccination

Question 1

What are vaccinations?

Answer 1

• Involves introducing small quantities of dead or inactive forms of pathogens into the body.
• Because the pathogen is dead or inactive:
• Cannot lead to disease in the patient.

Question 2

What do the white blood cells do?

Answer 2

• Stimulated to produce anti-bodies agaisnt the dead or inactive pathogens;
• WBC divides by mitosis to produce lots of copies of itself.
• Copies can stay in the blood for decades.

Question 3

What happens if the same pathogen enters the body years later?

Answer 3

• WBC can produce the correct antibodies quickly and correctly to prevent infection.

Question 4

What is herd immunity?

Answer 4

• If a lot of people have been vaccinated agaisnt pathogens and one person hasn’t.
• Pathogens are unable to spread to the persom without the vaccinated as the vaccinated people cannot carry the pathogen.