The term vaccine has different uses and applications. On the one hand, it refers to what belongs to or is related to cattle, that is, to cows. For example: “This jacket was made with the best cowhide”, “Agricultural activity suffers from the fall in the price of cattle, which has reached its lowest level in fifteen years”.
On the other hand, a vaccine is an organic principle or a virus that, prepared in a certain way, is inoculated into a person or animal to protect it against a certain disease.
A vaccine is an antigenic preparation, which is a substance that allows the formation of antibodies and has the ability to generate an immune response in the body. This response to the attack allows the development of an immunological memory that usually produces a permanent immunity against the disease. Any human being needs certain vaccines to avoid getting diseases or pathologies of various types, but the people who need them most are newborns. Thus, it is usual that in the first months of life they are subjected to vaccine injections to prevent contagion of measles, meningitis, mumps or poliomyelitis, among other problems. Likewise, it is necessary to emphasize that on many occasions, when traveling to certain areas of the globe, it is necessary and essential to carry out a certain vaccination to avoid becoming infected and contracting diseases that are the order of the day. .in this places. Thus, for example, all Spanish citizens who decide to travel to South Africa will be forced to be vaccinated against yellow fever and malaria. Meanwhile, if the destination is Thailand, where you will play sports or live in rural areas, it is recommended that travelers get vaccinated against malaria and that they also bet on tetanus and rabies vaccines. The first vaccine in history would have been created by the English country doctor Edward Jenner in 1796, who discovered that the smallpox vaccine immunized people against the much more serious and deadly human smallpox. Over time, several vaccines emerged to neutralize diseases such as rabies (1882), plague (1897), tuberculosis (1927), yellow fever (1935), influenza (1945), measles (1964), rubella (1970), chickenpox (1974). ). ). ) ), meningitis (1978) and hepatitis A (1992), among many others.
All this without forgetting that among the most recent vaccines, those of the 21st century, is that of the human papillomavirus that appeared in 2005, a first vaccine to end addiction to cocaine and heroin that became known in 2008 and Finally, in 2009, the first vaccine against the famous Influenza A appeared. Vaccines can be inactivated (formed by harmful microorganisms that when treated with chemicals or heat lose their ability to damage), live attenuated (microorganisms grown in conditions that make them lose their harmful properties), toxoids (inactivated toxic components of microorganisms) and subunits (fragments of microorganisms).
