Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

What to expect for the flu, RSV and COVID-19 respiratory season

Influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and COVID-19 are all part of the seasonal respiratory virus lineup. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the upcoming fall and winter are expected ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Q&A: Vaccines, variants and COVID-19 trends

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States were on the rise for weeks heading into mid-September, right as updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna started to be distributed across the country.

Vaccination

Just 23% of U.S. adults 'definitely' plan to get new COVID shot

Just 23% of American adults say they 'definitely' will get the new COVID-19 vaccine, while another 23% say they will 'probably' get it, according to a new poll, which also finds interest in the shot falls along partisan lines.

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Vaccine

A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains a small amount of an agent that resembles a microorganism. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and "remember" it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters.

Vaccines can be prophylactic (e.g. to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by any natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (e.g. vaccines against cancer are also being investigated; see cancer vaccine).

The term vaccine derives from Edward Jenner's 1796 use of the term cow pox (Latin variolæ vaccinæ, adapted from the Latin vaccīn-us, from vacca cow), which, when administered to humans, provided them protection against smallpox.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA