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Immunization
Published in Julius P. Kreier, Infection, Resistance, and Immunity, 2022
Michael F. Para, Susan L. Koletar, Carter L. Diggs
If living attenuated vaccines are used, they often generate a wide variety of antigens which will induce a broadly reactive immune response that reacts with antigens in a variety of strains of the pathogen. The cowpox virus which served as a vaccine to protect from smallpox is an example of a living agent that protects against a heterologous infection. Live vaccines which elicit humoral and cell-mediated immune responses against many different antigens and multiple epitopes are often broadly protective.
Suffering with two dissimilar diseases
Published in Dinesh Kumar Jain, Homeopathy, 2022
Cowpox virus and smallpox virus both are similar immunologically; this means both have similar antigenic structures. They make common antibodies. Antibodies developed after cowpox inoculation prevent the development of smallpox and vice versa. It is not the similarity in symptomatology but the similarity in (immunological) an antigenic structure that prevents other diseases by the formation of common antibodies. Cowpox virus develops antibodies that also kill smallpox virus. And smallpox viruses develop antibodies that also kill cowpox viruses. This is the actual mechanism.
Neurological events following immunizations
Published in Avindra Nath, Joseph R. Berger, Clinical Neurovirology, 2020
The fundamental goal of vaccination is to produce an antigen-specific immune response against a virulent infectious agent without actually causing the disease itself. This was first achieved scientifically by Edward Jenner in the late 1700s, when he inoculated a young boy with cowpox virus material, a less virulent relative to the deadly smallpox virus [6]. When the boy was subsequently inoculated with fully virulent material from a smallpox lesion, the child did not develop disease.
A Belgian student with black eschars
Published in Acta Clinica Belgica, 2023
Astrid Van Reempts, Liesbet De Meester, Koen Blot, Ann-Sophie Candaele, Hilde Beele, Jo Van Dorpe, Diana Huis in ‘t Veld
Human cowpox is a rare viral zoonosis. Cowpox virus is a member of the Orthopoxvirus genus, like the variola (smallpox) virus which was globally eradicated in 1980 by mass vaccination. Cowpox virus is endemic in wildlife in Europe and the adjacent parts of Asia. Despite the name, the asymptomatic natural reservoir hosts are wild rodents, especially bank voles and wood mice [1–3]. Historically, the name of the cowpox virus derives from the fact that animal to human transmission of this virus was observed in dairy maids who had direct contact with lesions on teats of infected cows, although infections in cows are not common [3]. Its resemblance to the mild form of smallpox and the observation that dairy farmers were immune to smallpox, inspired the English physician Edward Jenner to create the smallpox vaccine. The word ‘vaccination’, mentioned for the first time by Jenner in 1796, is derived from ‘vaccinus’ a Latin adjective, meaning ‘of or from the cow’ [4].
Using Individuals as (Mere) Means in Management of Infectious Diseases without Vaccines. Should We Purposely Infect Young People with Coronavirus?
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2020
One alternative strategy is to actually infect individuals with the live virus, which means making the individuals very likely to become sick with the associated disease. This is known as “variolation” and was widely used against smallpox in 1700, before Edward Jenner introduced the smallpox vaccine–in the form of an attenuated cowpox virus–in 1796 (Fenner et al. 1988). Giving limited doses of the virus and giving them in certain ways (in the case of smallpox, via skin tissue) was very likely to cause a milder version of the disease, which was nonetheless enough to trigger the desired reaction by the immune system and confer protection against future smallpox infections. It does entail some of the risks and of the discomfort of the disease for the individual who is infected, but there might be significant individual and public health benefits, especially if enough individuals get infected and create herd immunity, or at least contribute to speeding up herd immunity. When there is no vaccine (as was the case with smallpox before 1796), and assuming there is not enough cross-immunity from other diseases caused by similar viruses, people getting infected and then immune is the only way to create herd immunity. If the public health benefit is significant enough, a cost-benefit analysis of this strategy at the collective level does not always rule out variolation.
The race for a COVID-19 vaccine: where are we up to?
Published in Expert Review of Vaccines, 2022
Md Kamal Hossain, Majid Hassanzadeganroudsari, Jack Feehan, Vasso Apostolopoulos
Vaccines are one of the most successful scientific inventions in human history. Vaccines are considered one of the most cost-effective tools to eradicate infectious diseases [44]. The concept of vaccines against infectious disease was founded by Edward Jenner in 1796 by vaccination of live cowpox virus to induce cross-immunity to prevent smallpox [44,45]. This field was further enriched by Louis Pasteur, who started a new era of immunology by developing vaccines for fowl cholera, plague [46,47]. Since then, vaccines have contained many infectious diseases, including diphtheria, influenza, measles, tetanus, polio, whooping cough, and saved millions of lives [25]. In the twentieth century, vaccination programs against infectious diseases have gained success. They are mandated by governments all over the world under different schemes or programs to decrease the impact of these infectious diseases [48,49]. However, the vaccine development process is very challenging. It is a highly stringent, tedious, and time-consuming process and, on average, can take between 12–15 years, expanding to 60 years in a worst-case scenario [50,51]. Polio, one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, was first declared an epidemic in the USA in 1894, but a vaccine was not approved until almost 60 years later in 1957 [1,52], and the vaccine for Ebola took nearly 15 years [53]. The outbreak of coronavirus SARS CoV-1 was declared a pandemic in China in 2002 and MERS in Saudi Arabia in 2012. However, there are still no approved vaccines for these coronaviruses, even after 18 and 8 years since the outbreaks were declared pandemics [54]. Although SARS CoV-1, SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19), and MERS belong to the same viral family, COVID-19 demonstrates different clinical and etiological characteristics, and it is thought that COVID-19 vaccine development may face additional intricacies compared to SARS and MERS [55]. However, there are a number of cutting-edge technologies and concepts that could enhance the COVID-19 vaccine development process. Like all other vaccine candidates, an ideal COVID-19 vaccine development process involves a number of phases including distinct clinical trial phases I, II and III [56,57]. A brief description of all the phases of vaccine development has been depicted in (Table 1). The success of any vaccine depends entirely on success at each stage individually. Failure at any stage will force the discontinuation of the study which delays the entire vaccine development process.