IMMUNIZATION
Serums,
vaccines
protect

22 - Wednesday, December 13, 1989 - North Shore News

THERE ARE two ways in which
people can be protected against in-
fection: actively, by vaccines which
stimulate the immune system to
produce its own defence mecha-
nisms and passively, by serums
which are prepared from blocd
samples in which these defence
mechanisms are already present.

Serums are used to provide im-
mediate, short-term protection

TOPS OFF GIF

against the overwhelming effects
of snake bite, rabies, botulism and
tetanus. They also give added pro-
tection (effective up to three
months) for travellers or those
whose work places them at in-
creased risk of contracting a par-
ticular infectious disease.

Vaccines, on the other hand, in-
duce the body to develop its own
long-term protection against infec-
tions. They work by taking advan-

Cc

tage of the immune system's ex-
traordinary ability to develop
defences specific to any infectious
microbe it encounters and to
remember those defences for long
periods.

This memory — _ otherwise
known as specified acquired im-
munity — is entirely dependent or
the encounter for the immunz
system fizst must be introduced to

bacterium before it can develop a
defence against it.

When left to nature, we develop
immunity by suffering infectious
disease. Should the disease be par-
ticularly virulent or our bodies
especially vulnerable, it can be a
dangerous process. Vaccines offer
a safer alternative.

Preparati.ns consisting of a

See Vaccines

a disease-causing virus or Page 23

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