Question

What are vaccines and how do they prevent diseases?

Answer 1

Vaccines prepare our bodies to fight against harmful diseases without exposing it to disease symptoms that we are likely to encounter in the world.

Vaccines help your body identify what infections look like so that the immune system can use its natural defenses to treat them.

A vaccine for a particular disease may contain deactivated bacteria from that disease, or a deactivated or weakened live virus. They can't cause an infection, but the immune system still sees them as an enemy and produces antibodies in response. When encountering the live disease for the first time, the child’s immune system will be ready to fight it immediately and prevent serious illness or permanent harm.

If the child is unvaccinated and encounters one of those diseases, it takes time for the child’s immune system to examine the disease, record a description of it.