How Do Vaccines Work

How do vaccines work?
Germs are all around us, both in our environment and in our bodies. When a person is
susceptible and they encounter a harmful organism, it can lead to disease and death.
The body has many ways of defending itself against pathogens (disease-causing organisms).
Skin, mucus, and cilia (microscopic hairs that move debris away from the lungs) all work as
physical barriers to prevent pathogens from entering the body in the first place.
When a pathogen does infect the body, our body’s defences, called the immune system, are
triggered and the pathogen is attacked and destroyed or overcome.
The body's natural response:

A pathogen is a bacterium, virus, parasite or fungus that can cause disease within the body.
Each pathogen is made up of several subparts, usually unique to that specific pathogen and
the disease it causes. The subpart of a pathogen that causes the formation of antibodies is
called an antigen. The antibodies produced in response to the pathogen’s antigen are an
important part of the immune system. You can consider antibodies as the soldiers in your
body’s defense system. Each antibody, or soldier, in our system is trained to recognize one
specific antigen. We have thousands of different antibodies in our bodies. When the human
body is exposed to an antigen for the first time, it takes time for the immune system to
respond and produce antibodies specific to that antigen.
In the meantime, the person is susceptible to becoming ill.
Once the antigen-specific antibodies are produced, they work with the rest of the immune
system to destroy the pathogen and stop the disease. Antibodies to one pathogen generally
don’t protect against another pathogen except when two pathogens are very similar to each
other, like cousins. Once the body produces antibodies in its primary response to an antigen,
it also creates antibody-producing memory cells, which remain alive even after the pathogen
is defeated by the antibodies. If the body is exposed to the same pathogen more than once, the
antibody response is much faster and more effective than the first time around because the
memory cells are at the ready to pump out antibodies against that antigen.
This means that if the person is exposed to the dangerous pathogen in the future, their
immune system will be able to respond immediately, protecting against disease.
Mode of formation of new vaccines:
Development of Covid -19 Vaccination
Each vaccine under development must first undergo screenings and evaluations to determine
which antigen should be used to invoke an immune response. This preclinical phase is done
without testing on humans. An experimental vaccine is first tested in animals to evaluate its
safety and potential to prevent disease.
If the vaccine triggers an immune response, it is then tested in human clinical trials in three
phases.
Phase 1
The vaccine is given to a small number of volunteers to assess its safety, confirm it generates
an immune response, and determine the right dosage. Generally in this phase vaccines are
tested in young, healthy adult volunteers.
Phase 2
The vaccine is then given to several hundred volunteers to further assess its safety and ability
to generate an immune response. Participants in this phase have the same characteristics
(such as age, sex) as the people for whom the vaccine is intended. There are usually multiple
trials in this phase to evaluate various age groups and different formulations of the vaccine. A
group that did not get the vaccine is usually included in phase as a comparator group to
determine whether the changes in the vaccinated group are attributed to the vaccine, or have
happened by chance.
Phase 3
The vaccine is next given to thousands of volunteers – and compared to a similar group of
people who didn’t get the vaccine, but received a comparator product – to determine if the
vaccine is effective against the disease it is designed to protect against and to study its safety
in a much larger group of people. Most of the time phase three trials are conducted across
multiple countries and multiple sites within a country to assure the findings of the vaccine
performance apply to many different populations.
During phase two and phase three trials, the volunteers and the scientists conducting the
study are shielded from knowing which volunteers had received the vaccine being tested or
the comparator product. This is called “blinding” and is necessary to assure that neither the
volunteers nor the scientists are influenced in their assessment of safety or effectiveness by
knowing who got which product. After the trial is over and all the results are finalized, the
volunteers and the trial scientists are informed who received the vaccine and who received
the comparator.
When the results of all these clinical trials are available, a series of steps is required,
including reviews of efficacy and safety for regulatory and public health policy approvals.
Officials in each country closely review the study data and decide whether to authorize the
vaccine for use. A vaccine must be proven to be safe and effective across a broad population
before it will be approved and introduced into a national immunization programme. The bar
for vaccine safety and efficacy is extremely high, recognizing that vaccines are given to
people who are otherwise healthy and specifically free from the illness.
Further monitoring takes place in an ongoing way after the vaccine is introduced. There are
systems to monitor the safety and effectiveness of all vaccines. This enables scientists to keep
track of vaccine impact and safety even as they are used in a large number of people, over a
long time frame. These data are used to adjust the policies for vaccine use to optimize their
impact, and they also allow the vaccine to be safely tracked throughout its use.
Once a vaccine is in use, it must be continuously monitored to make sure it continues to be
safe.
Vaccines present against Covid-19:
There are several COVID-19 vaccines validated for use by WHO (given Emergency Use
Listing).
As of 12 January 2022, the following vaccines have obtained EUL:
1)The Pfizer/BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine, 31 December 2020.

2)The SII/COVISHIELD and AstraZeneca/AZD1222 vaccines, 16 February 2021.
3)The Janssen/Ad26.COV 2.S vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson, 12 March 2021.
4)The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA 1273), 30 April 2021.
5)The Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, 7 May 2021.
6)The Sinovac-CoronaVac vaccine, 1 June 2021.
7)The Bharat Biotech BBV152 COVAXIN vaccine, 3 November 2021.
8)The Covovax (NVX-CoV2373) vaccine, 17 December 2021.
9)The Nuvaxovid (NVX-CoV2373) vaccine, 20 December 2021
Reference:
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Vaccines.

(n.d.). https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/coronavirus-disease-
(covid-19)-vaccines

How Do Vaccines Work

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How Do Vaccines Work

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How do vaccines work?

The body's natural response:

Development of Covid -19 Vaccination

Vaccines present against Covid-19:

As of 12 January 2022, the following vaccines have obtained EUL:

1)The Pfizer/BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine, 31 December 2020.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Vaccines.

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