WHY VACCINES ARE THE ONLY WAY TO STOP PANDEMIC?

About vaccines and coronavirus pandemic

The world has changed over the last months. The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is spreading at the speed of light. The world is in a period of crisis. The planes are not flying. The trains are not traveling. Schools and colleges are closed. The only way to stop the pandemic is vaccines.

What are the vaccines?

A vaccine is a biological preparation that gives you immunity to particular infectious. Vaccine contains an agent that looks like a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from killed forms of the microbe.

The administration of vaccines is called vaccination. Vaccination is the most effective way of preventing infectious diseases.

How do they work?

A vaccine trains the immune system to recognize and fight viruses or bacteria. Certain molecules from the pathogen must be introduced into the body to cause an immune response. So, these kinds of molecules are called antigens. They are present in all kinds of viruses and bacteria. These antigens are injected into the body, the immune system gets used to them and learns to recognize them as an unfriendly aggressor. If the bacteria or virus reappears, the immune system will recognize the antigens immediately and aggressively attack them before pathogens can spread and cause a sickness.

Why are they important?

Vaccines do not only protect one individual level. It benefits the whole population. Once enough people are immunized, opportunities for an outbreak of disease become so low even people who aren't immunized benefit. The whole population doesn't have to get immunized.

Public health officials and scientists continue to study herd immunity and identify key thresholds, but one telling example is the country of Gambia, where a vaccination rate of just 70% of the population was enough to eliminate Hib disease.

How vaccines can help to fight COVID-19?

Coronavirus is spreading around the world, but there are still no vaccines to protect the body against the COVID-19. If we (I mean scientists and researchers, everyone involved in this work) will be able to find a vaccine for coronavirus, the number of people who caught the virus would dramatically decrease. Because if there are not any more new cases of the disease, the outbreak will stop.

What kind of progress has been made?

Researches all over the world are trying to make a vaccine. More than 80 specialist groups are working on this.

• Last month researchers from Seattle announced the first human trial for the vaccine. However, they are skipping any animal research to test its safety and effectiveness.

• The first human trial in Europe started in Oxford. More than 800 recruits - half of them will receive a vaccine while the rest of the recruits will have a vaccine that protects against meningitis.

However, no one knows whether these vaccines are effective or not, yet.