• Question: How do vaccines work?

    Asked by Zara Haleem to Anna, Hayley, Iain, Rebecca on 15 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by hannah B.
    • Photo: Hayley Clissold

      Hayley Clissold answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Vaccines work by effectively preparing your immune system against a certain infection.

      The vaccine itself contains either dead or a weakened form of the bacteria/virus that causes the disease you’re being vaccinated against. This enables our immune system to generate lots of disease-fighting proteins called antibodies that can ‘learn’ how to fight off the infection if you were ever infected with the live form of the bacteria/virus.

      Then, if you were unfortunate enough to actually be infected by the live bacteria/virus, then your immune system already knows how to fight off the disease, so can do so much quicker and more efficiently than if you weren’t vaccinated.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Hayley’s said it all – that’s why it’s very important to get and boost your vaccinations whenever required.

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