WORLD HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

Vaccines;
history and importance in this new era

Presented By:
Brayan Martin Rodriguez Aranda

Professor:
Alvar Salazar Fonz

June 23, 2020

Tehuacán, Puebla
Vaccination is one of the most effective ways to prevent diseases. A vaccine helps the body’s
immune system to recognize and fight pathogens like viruses or bacteria, which then keeps
us safe from the diseases they cause. Vaccines protect against more than 25 debilitating or
life-threatening diseases, including measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, meningitis,
influenza, tetanus, typhoid and cervical cancer.
Vaccines contain the same germs that cause disease. But they have been either killed or
weakened to the point that they don’t make you sick. Some vaccines contain only a part of
the disease germ.
A vaccine stimulates your immune system to produce antibodies, exactly like it would if you
were exposed to the disease. After getting vaccinated, you develop immunity to that
disease, without having to get the disease first.
Immunization is the process by which a person or animal becomes protected against a
disease. This term is often used interchangeably with vaccination.
The story of vaccines begins with the long history of infectious disease in humans, and in
particular, with early uses of smallpox material to provide immunity to that disease.
Evidence exists that the Chinese employed smallpox inoculation or variolation, as such use
of smallpox material was called.

Edward Jenner is considered the founder of vaccinology in 1796, after he demonstrated

immunity to smallpox. The first vaccine discovered was the smallpox vaccine in 1798.
Smallpox was a deadly illness. It killed 300 million to 500 million people around the world
in the last century. After the vaccine was given to people, the disease was eventually erased.
It’s the only disease to be completely destroyed. There are now others close to that point,
including polio.
The history continuous with Louis Pasteur, who in 1897 and 1904 develop the attenuated
cholera vaccine and inactivated anthrax vaccine in humans. The middle of the 20th century
was an active time for vaccine research and development. Methods for growing viruses in
the laboratory led to rapid discoveries and innovations, including the creation of vaccines
for polio.
For the year 1923 Alexander Gleny created perfected a method to inactivate tetanus toxin
with formaldehyde, this method was used too in 1926 in the develop of the diphtheria
vaccine.
From the 50s to 1985 viral tissue culture methods were developed, creating this way the
polio vaccine. These days, polio is almost eradicated.
There has always been resistance to vaccines in some groups, in the late 1970s and 1980s a
growing vociferous anti-vaccination campaign started. Decreasing profitability for vaccine
manufacture, which led to a decline in the number of companies producing vaccines.

The past two decades have seen the application of molecular genetics and its increased
insights into immunology, microbiology and genomics applied to vaccinology. Current
successes include the development of recombinant hepatitis B vaccines, the less
reactogenic acellular pertussis vaccine, and new techniques for seasonal influenza vaccine
manufacture.
Innovative techniques now drive vaccine research, with recombinant DNA technology and
new delivery techniques leading scientists in new directions. Disease targets have
expanded, and some vaccine research is beginning to focus on non-infectious conditions
such as addiction and allergies.

Without a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2- the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 - there will
always be a risk that new outbreaks of the disease will emerge.
While rigorous testing, contact tracing and quarantine procedures will help to control the
spread COVID-19, the only way to significantly reduce the threat is for enough of the
population to become immune to the virus so they cannot pass it on.
Create a new vaccine is not an easy procedure. Nowadays, Oxford is one of the heads in
investigation for the creation of a new vaccine that could protect humans against the
pandemic coronavirus. They are initiating studies to evaluate how well the vaccine induces
immune responses in older adults, and to test whether it can provide protection in the
wider population.
This study aims to assess how well people across a broad range of ages could be protected
from COVID-19 with this new vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. It will also provide valuable
information on safety aspects of the vaccine and its ability to generate good immune
responses against the virus.

In conclusion, along the history vaccines have been significant for the survival of human
beings, it’s important to know how they were developed and the importance in our
civilization to create solutions for the future. Nowadays we are living the pandemic COVID-
19, and it is important to create solutions that help in our way to start with the new
normality.
As Edmund Burke once said, “Those who don’t know history are destinated to repeat it”

References:
1) https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/vpd-vac-basics.html
2) https://www.who.int/topics/vaccines/en/
3) https://www.immune.org.nz/vaccines/vaccine-development/brief-history-
vaccination#:~:text=Edward%20Jenner%20is%20considered%20the,and%20demon
strated%20immunity%20to%20smallpox.
4) https://immunizebc.ca/what-are-vaccines
5) https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline/all