The Importance of a Full Measles Vaccination

vaccination

PnuVax, a biopharmaceuticals and vaccines developer and producer, leverages the professional training and experience of its leaders and staff to help eliminate preventable infectious diseases on a worldwide scale. PnuVax’s efforts are focused on the vaccination needs of developing countries, where infectious diseases, such as measles, still need to be completely eradicated.

A 2019 study conducted by the Harvard Medical School showed that when a child gets sick with measles, between 20 to 50 percent of his or her antibodies get wiped out which results in depleted immunity. It will take a considerable time for his or her immune system to relearn to protect the body from infections. The frame of time from which the measles virus ravages the body until the time the immune systems get to relearn its function is called measles-induced “immune amnesia.”

Measles vaccine protects the body in two ways: prevent the acute illness from infecting, and to provide protection from other infection over a long period of time. The vaccine gives a general boost to the immune system. It prevents the body from forgetting or losing its immune memory, thereby preserving the body’s resistance from other infections.

The study was the first to measure the damage caused by measles virus infection. The study further underlines the importance of preventing measles infection through full vaccination, which includes booster shots of all previous childhood vaccinations.

The researchers also recommend that clinicians should consider bolstering the immune system of patients under-recovery from measles infection by giving them booster shots of previous routine vaccines, such as polio and hepatitis. Re-vaccination following a measles infection can help in mitigating any long-term effects that result from immune amnesia.

Four Approaches to Making Vaccines

PnuVax is a Canadian biopharma corporation dedicated to the development of vaccines and the promotion of better public health practices around the world. With a team that has over 30 years of experience, PnuVax focuses on the research and manufacture of vaccines for diseases such as yellow fever and pneumonia.

The development of vaccines can take many forms. In essence, a vaccine provides active acquired immunity to the recipient against specific infections, but there are several ways this can be achieved.

One of the ways is to weaken germs to the point that it’s nearly impossible for them to reproduce. These weakened germs induce memory B cells in humans which protect us from the same infection in the future.

Another approach is to completely neutralize the germs, effectively killing them. When introduced into the body, even though the germs are inactive, our bodies still recognize them as such and learn to defend against them.

A third method is to only use the parts of a virus that are active in teaching our body to defend against it. This method is only effective against those viruses that elicit an immune response through specific proteins.

Finally, bacteria can be vaccinated against in the same way. By using a neutralized bacterial toxin or the polysaccharide coating of a bacterium, we can become effectively immunized without ever having been infected.