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An Introduction to the Immune System and Vaccines
Published in Patricia G. Melloy, Viruses and Society, 2023
Edward Jenner in England is credited with a technique that soon replaced variolation called vaccination, published in 1798. It was known at the time that milkmaids did not get smallpox like other members of the population. They seemed to be protected from smallpox because of exposure to a related virus, cowpox. Jenner famously gave pus from the lesion of a milkmaid with cowpox to a boy and found that the boy was protected from smallpox. The word vaccination comes from the Latin word “vacca” for cow (Coico and Sunshine 2015; Plotkin 2005; Zimmer 2011; Piot et al. 2019). Vaccination is sometimes used interchangeably with immunization. The term inoculation is often used as well, although it has a broader use as a general term for exposing an animal to some type of immunogen to produce immunity (Cruse and Lewis 2009).
Informed consent and clinical trials
Published in Joseph Tham, Alberto García Gómez, Mirko Daniel Garasic, Cross-Cultural and Religious Critiques of Informed Consent, 2021
How do all these developments in religious discussion of clinical trials, vaccinations and informed consent affect the actual way in which the orthodox religious sectors behave regarding those practices? There is a lower rate of immunization in the ultra-orthodox sector of Israeli society, but the cause for that phenomenon is not easy to detect. Indeed, there were a few cases in which leading rabbis instructed their communities to avoid immunization, but this occurred on the occasion of some medical controversy about the effectiveness of particular immunization (which also led some non-religious sectors to refuse to immunize their children). There is some general suspicion from these communities regarding the State and the Ministry of Health instructions. This suspicion is not derived from any formal religious argument against the idea of immunization as such. Living in small and relatively isolated communities, this sector in the population may feel that the “herd effect” of most people getting immunized is sufficient to protect them from the disease without them taking the inoculation.
Neuroinfectious Diseases
Published in Philip B. Gorelick, Fernando D. Testai, Graeme J. Hankey, Joanna M. Wardlaw, Hankey's Clinical Neurology, 2020
Jeremy D. Young, Jesica A. Herrick, Scott Borgetti
Initially, the symptoms of rabies resemble those of other systemic viral infections, with fevers, chills, headache, sore throat, nausea, anorexia, and malaise. Pain or paresthesias at the site of inoculation may be the only early neurologic symptoms. This prodrome typically lasts less than 1 week.
Reports of New and Recurrent Keratitis following mRNA-based COVID-19 Vaccination
Published in Ocular Immunology and Inflammation, 2023
Paras P. Shah, Yoav Glidai, Richard Braunstein, Matthew Gorski, Jung Lee, Farihah Anwar, Amelia Schrier, Jules Winokur, Anne S. Steiner
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus known to cause COVID-19, has had a profound public health impact, claiming upwards of 6 million lives globally at the time of this report. Safe and effective inoculation has quickly become the cornerstone to limiting further spread. In late 2020, phase 3 trial reports of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) and mRNA-1273 (Moderna) COVID-19 vaccines were independently released.1,2 The placebo-controlled, randomized studies demonstrated a 95% and 94% efficacy in preventing severe disease, respectively. Given the short timeframe in which the two-dose vaccines were developed and given emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), safety was of utmost scrutiny. One month post-inoculation, the overall incidence of serious side effects was minimal and comparable in both the vaccine and placebo cohorts; none of the reported adverse events were ophthalmic in nature.
Myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination: incidence, mechanisms, and clinical considerations
Published in Expert Review of Cardiovascular Therapy, 2022
John R. Power, Lucas K. Keyt, Eric D. Adler
The concept of introducing substrate resembling infectious organisms to initiate the adaptive immune system was first developed in the 1700s after the observation that milk maids who had been infected with cowpox were protected against smallpox infection [1]. In the subsequent 250 years, vaccinations have been unequivocally demonstrated to provide improved quality of life, increased life expectancy, and in some cases, the eradication of certain diseases entirely [2,3]. Since the original inoculation with inactivated bacterial or viral material, more advanced forms of vaccination have been developed. Delivery of genetic material using tissue-tropic viral vectors and augmentation of purified protein or polysaccharide vaccines with adjuvant nanoparticles are examples of vaccine platforms that prepare the host immune system for unencountered pathogens [4]. The development of vaccines utilizing messenger RNA (mRNA) to initiate host cell synthesis of antigens is only the most recent example of such progress. In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, novel mRNA vaccines remain the most effective means for curbing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Efficacy of COVID-19 vaccinations has been demonstrated internationally in numerous large populations, reducing the spread of infection, severe symptoms, and death [5–10]. However, while COVID-19 vaccines offer reduced burden of disease, if not full immunity, they may be associated with adverse events of their own.
Diverse vaccine platforms safeguarding against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants
Published in Expert Review of Vaccines, 2022
Bhaswati Chatterjee, Suman S. Thakur
A compartmental mathematical model was constructed to study the impact of the variant VOC-202012/01 of lineage B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant) on the population and it was found that the high transmissibility ability of the variant can infect more people. Further, the studies show health care institutions should involve more non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccine inoculation to prevent disastrous outcomes in the population due to the high transmissibility ability of the variant [36]. Interestingly, a high reproduction number of 43–90%, compared to the predecessor lineage was estimated by the statistical and dynamic modeling approaches for variant VOC-202012/01 of lineage B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant) in England [37]. The Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) and Gamma (P.1) variants depicted about 66.0% and 5.0% of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the U.S. at the end of April 2021 [21]. The infection with VOC-202012/1 in a population is associated with high mortality [38].