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Attenuated Vaccination

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A common alternative to the live attenuated vaccinations are inactivated, or killed, vaccines. Inactivated vaccines are produced by growing the virus in a medium and then inactivating it with heat and/or a chemical. Since the virus is inactivated, it is unable to cause infection, even in patients that suffer from immunodeficiency. Inactivated viruses are faced with limitations, however. Only viral vaccines containing the whole virus are available in this form, which includes; influenza; polio; rabies; and hepatitis A (Figure 3). The inactivated vaccinations also must be administered in multiple doses, as the first dose does not produce protective antibodies, but only primes the immune system for infection (Offit et al.. 2002). Polysaccharide …show more content…

Conjugate vaccinations were discovered in the 1980s as a solution to overcome the difficulties with polysaccharide vaccinations. Through using conjugation, the immune response could be changed from T-cell independent to T-cell dependent, meaning that the T-cells play a much bigger role in the immune response. This lead to an increased immunogenicity in infants and antibody booster response to multiple doses of the vaccine, two areas with which polysaccharide vaccinations fell short. Current conjugate vaccinations are available for pneumococcal and meningococcal diseases. Vaccine antigens may also be produced through genetic engineering and are termed recombinant vaccines. There are currently four types of recombinant vaccines. These include Hepatitis B, where the viral gene is inserted into a yeast cell, Human papillomavirus, where the genes for a viral coat protein are inserted into yeast cells, Typhoid, where the salmonella typhi bacteria are genetically modified to not cause illness, and influenza, where the virus has been engineered to replicate effectively in the mucosa of the nasopharynx rather than the …show more content…

There is still a great deal of information to learn from the study of viruses and the continued exploration of the viral genome is crucial in understanding how viruses communicate, transmit from host to host and evade immune responses. The ever-change nature of the viral genome has shown us that the most dangerous viral infections of today may be undermined by newer and more effective viruses, resulting in catastrophic outcomes. Through the study of viruses, it is the hope of the scientific community to be ahead of the viral curve, preventing infections before they even

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