Active Immunisation Flashcards
What is immunisation ?
The process by which a person develops immunity to a disease causing organism
What is active immunity
The protection gained as a result of the persons body producing its own antibodies
What is a vaccination
A method of immunisation where they insert a weakened or altered pathogen or toxin into the body
What is a antigen mixed with in a vaccination
An Adjuvant
What is the role of adjuvant ?
To promote the activity of the antigen and enhance the immune response
What does and antigen induce ?
The production of B and T cells and the formation of antibodies but doesn’t cause the disease
What can some B and T cells persist as
Memory cells
Why are vaccines subjects to clinical trials
To check their safely and efficiency before use on others
Examples of clinical trial protocols and what happens during them
Placebo - controlled
This is a treatment that is identical to the real treatment. This allows a valid comparison to be made between the test group and control
Double blind
Neither subjects or doctors know who receives the placebo to prevent doctors being bias towards patients getting the real treatment
Randomised
Subjects are grouped randomly to ensure bias is eliminated
How is error reduced during clinical trials ?
By making groups as similar as possible and having a large sample population
What is herd immunity
A form of protection given indirectly to the non immune minority’s by the immune majority
When is herd immunity achieved
When a large population are immunised
What is the benefits of herd immunity
There is a less chance or a non immunised person to come in contact with an infected person
It also protects the people who are unable to be immunised due to medical conditions
What is the policy in public health ?
To use mass vaccination programmes to create heard immunity against a variety of diseases
A pathogen shows antigenic variation when?
It has different antigens on its surface compared to the original strain
