VACCINATION: HISTORY LESSONS

May 17, 2021

The history of vaccination, like the history of mankind, is inextricably linked with epidemics of infectious diseases, which have claimed millions of human lives in their history.

Infectious diseases have plagued humanity throughout its history. There are many examples of the devastating consequences of smallpox, plague, cholera, typhoid, dysentery, measles, flu. The decline of the ancient world is associated not so much with wars as with monstrous plague epidemics that destroyed most of the population. In the XIV century, the plague killed a third of the population of Europe. Due to the smallpox epidemic, 15 years after the invasion of Cortez, less than 3 million people remained of the thirty million Inca empire.

Our body can acquire resistance to infectious diseases - immunity - in two ways. The first is to get sick and get well. In this case, the body will develop protective factors (antibodies), which will further protect us from this infection. This path is difficult and dangerous, fraught with a high risk of dangerous complications, up to disability and death. For example, the bacterium that causes tetanus secretes the most powerful toxin on the planet in the patient's body. This poison acts on the human nervous system, causing convulsions and respiratory arrest. One in four people with tetanus dies. The second way is vaccination. In this case, weakened microorganisms or their individual components are introduced into the body, which stimulate the immune defense response. In this case, a person acquires factors of protection against those diseases from which he was vaccinated, without getting sick of the disease itself.In 1996, the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the first vaccination carried out in 1796 by the English physician Edward Jenner. Jenner devoted almost 30 years to the observation and study of this phenomenon: people, having been ill with "cowpox", did not become infected with human smallpox. Taking the contents of the vesicles-vesicles formed on the fingers of the milkers of the cows, Jenner introduced it to an eight-year-old boy and his son (the latter fact is little known even to specialists). A month and a half later, he infected them with smallpox. The children did not get sick. This historical moment dates back to the beginning of vaccination - vaccination with the help of a vaccine.In 1882, Robert Koch isolated the bacterium, which is the cause of the development of tuberculosis, thanks to him, in the future, the BCG vaccine appeared.In 1891, physician Emil von Bering saved a child's life with the world's first diphtheria vaccine.In 1955, Jones Salk's polio vaccine was found to be effective.And in 1981, the hepatitis B vaccine became available.We currently know of 30 vaccinations against infectious diseases, and the science does not stop there. And although now more and more people appear who refuse vaccinations, their importance cannot be overestimated. Thanks to them, entire cities do not die out from smallpox; children tolerate whooping cough and measles without consequences; we have forgotten what polio is, and most importantly, we protect our children from dangerous diseases and their consequences.As the practice of introducing quarantine in various countries of the world, including the self-isolation regime and strict preventive measures, has shown, all this made it possible to reduce the rate of spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, reduce the impact on the medical infrastructure, however, completely take control of the transmission of the virus using non-specific prophylaxis methods in generally fails.Mass vaccination is the only effective way to stop a pandemic and there is no alternative.Karlygash Alibayeva,doctor-epidemiologist of the department of information and analyticalmonitoring and strategic development of KSCDIZ

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