Vaccines & vaccination

13 important questions on Vaccines & vaccination

What are 5 properties of ideal vaccines.

  • Should not cause a disease, or much less (side effects)
  • Genetical stable
  • Individual immunity + long-lasting + help with herd immunity
  • Public support because people need to be willing to take it
  • Be affordable 

What are the four broad types of vaccine atigens?

  • Live attenuated
  • Killed inactivated (inactivated by formaldehyde or B-propiolactone)
  • Toxoid
  • Subunit (recombinant DNA technology or classical bacteriological growth processes)

How can we manipulate a virus for a live attenuated vaccin?

  • Adapt to a new species => no longer fit in humans
  • Growth at low temperature
  • Generate a recombinant with an avirulent strain
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What is an advantage of a live attenuated vaccin?

  • A fitter immune response
  • A natural immune response

What is a subunit vaccin, and name an example.

Non-infectious vaccines:

Clone virus genome DNA  (or RNA with reverse transcriptase).
Choose the proteins you want in your vaccin. Parts of the virus that are immunogenic (=subunit vaccines).

Example hrHPV. These vaccins have a capsid structure (no genome and therefore no infectious virus in the vaccine) L1 and L2 proteins. They spontaneously form the virus like capsid.

What are virus-vector vaccines?

Belongs to the subgroup Subunit virus.

  • Viral vector vaccines are like messengers. They use a weakened version of a different virus to deliver instructions to cells in your body; from an antigen from a different virus.

Delivery system for an antigen of a different virus.

Which pathogens secrete toxoids (exotoxins)?

Tetanus, diphtheria, botulism and cholera.

How do they make the toxoid vaccine?

Fix the toxin with formalhdehyde. => it causes amino acid modification. So it is not toxic anymore.
But they still activate antibodies.

What kind of vaccines do we have against the different infections?

Influenza: still try to find a protein that doesn't change.

Tell about the type of virus and de mode of transmission of small pox virus.


Type of virus:
  • Variola smallpox-virus (poxviridae family, with a orthopoxvirus genus)
  • Major (most common with 30% mortality rate) and minor form (milder)
Transmission via:
  • Inhalation
  • Contact with the leasions (Leasions grow and leave deep scars)

What was the first vaccine against smallpox and what is it now?

- The use of cowpox. Has a long history (Edward Jenner tested the hypothesis, injecting with a weaker form of cowpox to the son of his gardner.)
- From 19st we use the vaccinia virus (VACV)

When was smallpox eliminated worldwide?

1980. Because of sufficient international co-operation and collaboration to track the virus globally and administer a vaccine.

What do we need to eradicate a virus?

  1. Stable political and bureaucratic framework
  2. Clear, measurable goals

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