Measles used to kill hundreds of children a year and now because of vaccination we almost never see measles deaths among healthy, vaccinated individuals
Amira Roess
“Herd immunity is what occurs when the majority of a population, over 95% for most diseases, becomes protected against a disease. When this happens, the virus or bacteria essentially hits a dead end of people to infect and spread stops.
Immunity occurs after a harmful virus or bacteria enters the body either through infection or vaccination. After that exposure, the immune system will produce antibodies to fight against that pathogen, so that at the next encounter, the body ‘remembers’ and more quickly activates to produce antibodies to fight back. This is essentially how your immune system works. As more people become immune, the viruses or bacteria run out of people to infect and sizzles out. For every person who is immunized, it becomes that much more difficult for the disease to cause additional sickness.
Vaccines have been developed to kick-start that active immunity in a safer proactive way rather than risk severe illness from infection. For example, measles used to kill hundreds of children a year and now because of vaccination we almost never see measles deaths among healthy, vaccinated individuals.
Over the last several decades, vaccines have been used to proactively protect people from infectious diseases. Vaccines work by introducing a weakened or inactive version of the disease-causing agent to the body to trigger active immunity. Vaccines have been proven to be safe and effective. Research shows that any side effects from vaccines are minimal and far less harmful, and short-lived, compared to actually having the disease.”
@masonpublichealth.bsky.social
