Health

Vaccination mistrust still widespread: Study

Four years after COVID-19 began to spread worldwide, a University of Texas at Arlington social worker says work still needs to be done to address the importance of getting vaccinated.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Understanding measles and the current outbreak

Measles used to be a common childhood illness years ago. At the beginning of this century, measles had been declared eliminated from the country. But now, measles, one of the most contagious diseases to spread, is returning ...

Vaccination

Annual two-dose SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaign beneficial

Annual administration of a second dose of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine five months after the initial dose results in fewer hospitalizations and deaths, according to a study published ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Researchers find patients in the ER are willing to get a flu shot

Simply asking patients to get the flu vaccine, and combining it with helpful video and print messages, is enough to persuade many who visit emergency departments to roll up their sleeves, according to a new study led by UC ...

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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