Covid 19 vaccination campaigns are happening across the globe and it’s one of the most discussed topics nowadays We know, Vaccines are a critical tool in the battle against COVID-19 scientists from across the world are collaborating and innovating new vaccines hopefully that will collectively save lives and end this covid 19 pandemic. So, today we are going to discuss this vaccination process how does it work, different covid 19 vaccines are available right now Whether it's safe? any side effects are there?? we will discuss all these in today's episode.
Vaccination is a simple, safe, and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases before they come into contact with them It uses your body’s natural defenses to build resistance to specific infections and makes your immune system stronger. vaccines train your immune system to create antibodies just as it does when it’s exposed to a disease. However, because vaccines contain only killed or weakened forms of germs like viruses or bacteria they do not cause the disease or put you at risk of its complications. How does it work? Vaccines reduce the risks of getting a disease by working with your body’s natural defenses to build protection. When you get a vaccine, your immune system responds. It recognizes the invading germ, such as the virus or bacteria It produces antibodies. those are proteins produced naturally by the immune system to fight disease and remembers the disease and how to fight it If you are then exposed to the germ in the future, your immune system can quickly destroy it before you become unwell.
The vaccine is therefore a safe and clever way to produce an immune response in the body, without causing illness we typically remain protected against a disease for years, decades or even a lifetime This is what makes vaccines so effective rather than treating a disease after it occurs, vaccines prevent us in the first instance from getting sick let's see what are the different types of vaccines available There are three approaches to designing a vaccine Their differences lie in whether they use a whole virus or just the parts of the germ that triggers the immune system or just the genetic material that provides the instructions for making specific proteins and not the whole virus. The whole-microbe approach, It's of 3 types of Inactivated vaccine, The first way to make a vaccine is to take the disease-carrying virus or bacterium, or one very similar to it, and inactivate or kill it using chemicals, heat, or radiation. This approach uses technology that’s been proven to work in people this is the way the flu and polio vaccines are made and vaccines can be manufactured on a reasonable scale.
However, it requires special laboratory facilities to grow the virus or bacterium safely can have a relatively long production time the second type is Live-attenuated vaccine A live-attenuated vaccine uses a living but weakened version of the virus or one that’s very similar to the measles, rubella vaccine, and the chickenpox vaccines are examples of this type of vaccine This approach uses similar technology to the inactivated vaccine and can be manufactured at scale, However, vaccines like this may not be suitable for people with compromised immune systems The third type is Viral vector vaccine this type of vaccine uses a safe virus to deliver specific sub-parts – called proteins it can trigger an immune response without causing disease. To do this, the instructions for making particular parts of the pathogen of interest are inserted into a safe virus The safe virus then serves as a platform or vector to deliver the protein into the body the protein triggers the immune response. The Ebola vaccine is a viral vector vaccine and this type can be developed rapidly. The second approach is the subunit approach a subunit vaccine is one that only uses the very specific parts of a virus or bacterium that the immune system needs to recognize It doesn't contain the whole microbe or use a safe virus as a vector. The subunits may be proteins or sugars Most of the vaccines on the childhood schedule are subunit vaccines, protecting people from diseases such as tetanus, diphtheria, etc. The 3d one is The genetic approach or nucleic acid vaccine, unlike vaccine approaches that use either a weakened or dead whole microbe or parts of one a nucleic acid vaccine just uses a section of genetic material that provides the instructions for specific proteins, not the whole microbe DNA and RNA are the instructions our cells use to make proteins.
In our cells, DNA is first turned into messenger RNA, which is then used as the blueprint to make specific proteins. A nucleic acid vaccine delivers a specific set of instructions to our cells either as DNA or mRNA, for them to make the specific protein that we want our immune system to recognize and respond to it. Now we will see what are the different covid 19 vaccines available right now COVAXIN - manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Covaxin is an inactivated vaccine which means that it is made up of killed coronaviruses, making it safe to be injected into the body Bharat Biotech used a sample of the coronavirus, isolated by India's National Institute of Virology When administered, immune cells can still recognize the dead virus, prompting the immune system to make antibodies against the pandemic virus Covishield Covishield is originally developed by Oxford University-Astrazeneca it has been produced and marketed as 'Covisheild' by Pune-based vaccine conglomerate, Serum Institute of India (SII) The vaccine is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus known as an adenovirus, from chimpanzees It has been modified to look more like coronavirus - although it can't cause illness. When the vaccine is injected into a patient, it prompts the immune system to start making antibodies and primes it to attack any coronavirus infection then we have Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both are mRNA vaccines, which is a relatively new technology
Essentially, they introduce genetic instructions to your body’s cells on how to make the spike protein that gives the coronavirus its unique shape Once those spike proteins are created, your immune system reacts to them and learns how to prevent future spike proteins. When the immune system sees the spike protein, it recognizes it as an intruder and begins building antibodies against it. The immune system then stores these antibodies, which can fight the real virus as well then we have Janssen Vaccine by J&J it uses a different approach to instruct human cells to make the SARS-2 spike protein which then triggers an immune response. It is what’s known as a viral vectored vaccine Once the adenovirus enters cells, they use that code to make spike proteins J&J employed this same approach to make an Ebola vaccine that has been authorized for use by the European Medicines Agency then we have Chinese vaccines Sinovac and Sinopharm China has been developing Covid-19 vaccines since the very beginning of the pandemic It was the first country in the world to give a vaccine to some of its population in summer 2020 it currently has 16 different vaccines at various stages of development, but the current front-runners are from Sinovac and Sinopharm.
One of the most frequently asked questions about the covid vaccine is "Are there any side effects of Covid vaccines?" I can only say that, like any medicine, the vaccine causes mild side effects such as low-grade fever and redness at the injection site. The gentle reaction takes place in a couple of days. Several and prolonged side effects are very rare. As vaccines are continuously monitored for rare dangerous events.