When discussing vaccinations, it is important that we understand how they work so that we are always being safe and protecting ourselves and the rest of the community to the best of our ability. PublicHealth's website is an excellent source for information on vaccines, what goes into them, and how they work. For the sake of this post, I am going to be using information from PublicHealth's website to provide information on the ways that vaccines work, and what happens when everyone doesn't get vaccinated properly. According to their website, PublicHealth states that, "A vaccine works by training the immune system to recognize and combat pathogens, either viruses or bacteria." Whenever a person receives a vaccine, a small portion of the pathogen is injected into the body. Once the pathogen is in the person's body, the person's immune system will learn to recognize that pathogen and fight it off. Because of this, the body is able to fight off the pathogen before it is able to take over the person's body.
Once enough people have received the vaccination for a specific disease, it makes it incredibly difficult for that disease to resurface throughout the community. On their website, PublicHealth uses the term "herd immunity" to describe the process where a disease will nearly die out entirely due to the fact that entire populations will be vaccinated against it. PublicHealth emphasizes, however, that the "herd immunity" theory is incredibly important because "there will always be a percentage of the population that cannot be vaccinated, including infants, young children, the elderly, people with severe allergies, pregnant women, or people with compromised immune systems." The "herd immunity" theory is only effective as long as everyone who can receive vaccinations are getting them. If everyone in the community has the mindset of, "If I don't get vaccinated, it won't affect me because everyone else is vaccinated," then we are likely to see a reversal of the "herd immunity" theory.
To read more about vaccinations, visit PublicHealth's website here:
http://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/vaccines-work/
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