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One of the greatest achievements of medicine is vaccination against infectious diseases. It would seem that the time when, for example, due to the plague almost half of the population of Europe died out, or the flu, from which about 100 million people died within a few months almost 50 years ago, is gone forever. And yet NO! Every year, many millions of people die from infectious diseases, also in the so-called countries. civilized.
The reason – microbes change all the time, and available and effective vaccines cannot be given to everyone in need.
Necessary information
There is never too much information on immunization. That is why for six years, on the initiative of WHO, we have been celebrating the European Immunization Week every year, the aim of which is to promote vaccination as the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases and disseminate knowledge about them, because it is constantly dying, also in Europe, the USA and Canada because of them many people, including children.
Last year, for the first time, the National Vaccination Day was also celebrated, organized by the Polish Society of Experimental and Clinical Immunology, the Polish Society of Vaccination and the Polish Pediatric Society. Its purpose, apart from promoting knowledge about infectious diseases and the necessity to vaccinate against them, is to draw attention to the need to increase access to this type of prophylaxis, e.g. by introducing an increasing number of compulsory, and therefore free, vaccinations. It seems, however, that decision-makers do not realize that prophylaxis is always cheaper than treatment and that one cannot save on it. This is evidenced by the latest version of the mandatory vaccination calendar, published last November, which does not take into account any of the changes that doctors have been fighting for years – it is the same as in 2009!
From the dawn of time
People suffer from infectious diseases and die “always”. You can read about them in Chinese scriptures dating back to several thousand BC, on Mesopotamian clay tablets, in Egyptian papyri, the Bible, and ancient Greek and Roman scriptures.
And they were always fought with the methods available at the time. It was recommended, for example: to lubricate oneself with fluids and ointments containing essential oils with a strong bactericidal effect, to drink large amounts of alcohol (rightly so, because the body soaked in alcohol is less susceptible to infection!), To incense with juniper smoke, isolate the sick, and also … kill them, as a source of potential infection !? Moses forbade eating the flesh of sick animals.
The most effective method of preventing the so-called Smallpox was invented by the Chinese (before our era!) – they rubbed powdered scabs from the skin of people suffering from smallpox into the nasal mucosa. It was the first – effective! – vaccine. Dressing children in sick clothes or rubbing purulent discharge from pustules into their skin had a similar effect.
In Europe, the first vaccines appeared only in the 1796th century. Before, however, in XNUMX, the Englishman Edward Jenner proved that women who have contact with the vaccinia virus do not suffer from smallpox, he developed and spread almost all over Europe vaccination against it with the purulent discharge from pustules from smallpox patients, this method was known and widely known. used in Turkey.
Since then, rapid progress has been made in this area. Vaccines are developed against an increasing number of diseases – more modern, more effective, and burdened with fewer side effects. Let us mention just a few of them. In 1881 Ludwik Pasteur vaccinated sheep with weakened (attenuated) anthrax bacteria, and in 1885 he developed and applied a vaccine against rabies containing attenuated viruses of this disease. In 1890, Emil Behring published that the blood serum of animals resistant to diphtheria or tetanus can protect against these diseases – in 1910, mass vaccination with a toxoid containing a mixture of venoms and diphtheria anti-venom began.
Also noteworthy is the development, as early as 1937, of the first effective vaccine containing all inactivated influenza viruses. Initially, only American soldiers going to the front were vaccinated with it, and only from 1945 it was allowed to vaccinate the civilian population.
Poles, vaccinations and vaccines:
1804 r. — dr August Ludwik Becu, was the first to introduce vaccination against smallpox in Lithuania.
1886 – bacteriologist Odo Bujwid founded an institute of rabies prevention and promoted vaccination against rabies using the Pasteur method.
1895 r. — Marceli Nencki, a doctor, chemist and physiologist, developed a serum against a dangerous (95% mortality) infectious disease of cattle – rinderpest.
1919 r. — prof. Rudolph Weigl developed the first effective vaccine against typhus by artificially infecting lice with Rickettsia prowazekii.
1950 r. — prof. Hilary Koprowski vaccinated the world’s first child with the polio vaccine he developed.
1987 r. – prof. Lidia B. Brydak, together with prof. Wiesław Gaul i dr. Romuald Semkow developed the Polish technology for the production of an influenza vaccine.
Hysteria antyszczepieniowe
As long as vaccinations are known, their opponents also exist, finding out more and more reasons for rejecting them. One was the tragic news that the vaccine (MMR) against rubella, measles and mumps causes autism in children. Over time, it turned out that its author was a fraud, as stated by the American Claims Court, sponsored by lawyers representing parents of children with autism. And so what, since it resulted in the refusal of vaccination by many parents, which caused an outbreak of measles in England, Ireland and Spain, and the first deaths of this disease in years in Western Europe – says Dr. med. Paweł Grzesiowski, head of the Department of Prevention of Hospital Infections and Infections at the National Medicines Institute in Warsaw.
This is not the only case when unreliable research and biased information about their results lead to the abandonment of vaccination. In the 70s, vaccination against whooping cough was stopped in Germany, allegedly because the vaccine could cause brain damage. The French, in turn, were told that the hepatitis B vaccine was one of the causes of multiple sclerosis. The news that vaccines – almost all of them! – cause AIDS, infertility, carry deadly prions. And although none of these reports was confirmed by many years of research independent of pharmaceutical companies, many people, especially unvaccinated children, suffered from infectious diseases, had permanent complications and even died.
Dlaczego?
According to prof. Claire Anne Siegrist, a vaccinologist, it is difficult to eliminate infectious diseases, e.g. because often patients fear vaccines more than diseases, even when they know that they can die from them. A good example is the negligible vaccination coverage of Poles against seasonal flu. Dr. med. Grzesiowski claims that one of the reasons for the anti-vaccine propaganda may also be the tendency of Poles to reject everything that is not known how it works, but is obligatory – and most vaccinations are!
Some people claim that vaccination disturbs the immune system, causes allergies, delays the psychophysical development of the child, may cause neurological diseases, damage internal organs (pancreas, thyroid). He believes that people vaccinated against tuberculosis get it more often (they cite a WHO study!) And that the flu vaccine is completely ineffective! Others threaten with reports that vaccines may cause increased incidence of leukemia, childhood cancer, and even perinatal damage ?! Neither of these “revelations” is confirmed by independent scientific studies.
Every year, people die in the world due to, for example: HIV infection – 3 million people, tuberculosis – 2 million, malaria – over 1 million, diarrhea – almost 2 million, Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, kills over 3 million people, including as many as one million children !
Every year, about 45 million people suffer from whooping cough, of which up to 500 die, from cholera – no data is available on how many people get sick, but it is known that up to 20% die in the event of treatment, and 50% die if it is not treated. tetanus – half of those infected, Hib infection causes death to almost 400. children, about 2 billion people are infected with HBV – over 1,2 million die. Every year, about 1,5 billion people suffer from flu, of which up to a million die! The above data are estimates, very underestimated …
- See also: Forgotten disease kills again
Vaccination control …
In 1999, the World Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) was established to evaluate vaccination from science to epidemiology. The Committee employs experts in the field of epidemiology, immunology, paediatrics, infectious diseases and public health, as well as research on drugs and their safety (including vaccines). Twice a year, the GACVS publishes information on the immediate or long-term effects of vaccines. They show that there is no reason to believe that vaccinations can cause allergies, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, chronic arthritis, and nephrotic syndrome. There are also no reports of post-vaccine lymphocytic leukemia in people vaccinated against hepatitis B.
However, there were cases of flaccid paralysis in the course of vaccination with live attenuated poliovirus (OPV) vaccine, but due to the multiplicity of endemic outbreaks, it was not recommended to withhold vaccination until complete eradication of polio confirmed by WHO certificate. After that, only the inactivated vaccine will be used for another 10-20 years.
… And infectious diseases
Even in Europe, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, influenza, viral diarrhea, HIV / AIDS are common threats. There are new, so far unknown on our continent, e.g. ehrlichiosis, cryptosporidiosis in children, hemorrhagic fevers (Denga, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa, West Nile), hepatitis D and E. Diseases have returned that seemed to have passed forever: measles, diphtheria, whooping cough …
Many infectious agents are responsible for chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and allergies. Therefore, among others EU Member States and European interstate organizations (including the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control) have set up a communicable disease surveillance, monitoring and epidemiological control network to rapidly identify and respond to potential threats.
At the end of the 70s and 80s, experts claimed that infectious diseases did not threaten us. In 1974, the WHO announced that the world, after 178 years of vaccination against smallpox, was completely free of smallpox! Some vaccinations and preventive examinations were abandoned, and infectious wards were liquidated. Their enthusiasm was somewhat sobered only by the appearance of the SARS virus a few years ago, or last year A / H1N1 / v. It was also realized how big the danger are drug-resistant strains, new unknown and known mutants, and the lack of epidemiological vigilance.
As early as 1997, the WHO Director-General warned that the illusory sense of security had led to the alarming re-spread of many diseases that were thought no longer at risk: for example, tuberculosis, malaria, diphtheria, plague, cholera, yellow fever. New pathogenic microorganisms have appeared, hitherto unknown, against which there are no vaccines or drugs. It has been forgotten that infectious diseases are still a common threat because they do not respect borders, he alarmed.
Thirteen years later, in 2010, the situation is even worse, incl. because of intense anti-vaccination campaigns …
Vaccinations only!
All over the world, for several decades, most vaccination against infectious diseases has been compulsory. In Poland, vaccinations against smallpox began in 1951, compulsory vaccinations against tuberculosis and poliomyelitis were introduced in 1959, and in 1960 – against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, from which many children died.
The program, updated once a year – the vaccination calendar – includes a list and schedule of compulsory vaccinations, financed from the state budget, as well as recommended vaccinations, the cost of which is covered by the vaccinated person.
All children and adolescents must be vaccinated – against hepatitis B (hepatitis B), tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps and rubella, also against infections caused by Haemophilus influenzae type B ( Hib).
Adults exposed in a special way to infections are also obligatory – against hepatitis B, diphtheria, typhoid fever, rabies, tetanus, Hib, Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and children: against Streptococcus pneumoniae and chicken pox.
There are also vaccinations recommended for individual indications against: hepatitis A, influenza, tick-borne encephalitis, yellow fever, chicken pox, rabies and diseases caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitidis, as well as post-exposure vaccinations, performed depending on the direct indications of the doctor.
There are also recommended vaccinations, for example: children – if they have not been vaccinated, because the mandatory vaccination schedule did not include them, and adults – if they have not been vaccinated before or in whom booster doses should be given. The recommendations also apply to vaccinations – children and adults – against seasonal diseases, as well as before going on holiday. These are i.a. vaccinations against: influenza, hepatitis A and B, measles, mumps, rubella, tick-borne encephalitis, diphtheria, tetanus, Hib, Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, chicken pox, rotavirus diarrhea, HPV, and yellow fever in people who go to countries, in which such vaccination is compulsory.
In Europe, the USA and Canada, few people, including doctors, have seen with their own eyes people suffering from tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough or polio, from which millions of people die every year in other regions. Vaccinations, if not eliminating many infectious diseases, at least reduced the number of illnesses and life-threatening complications. It is therefore surprising that there are people who question their necessity, especially since in the era of mass communication the risk of spreading pathogenic microorganisms is enormous.
Vaccines, more modern, also produced by means of biotechnological methods, incl. genetic recombination are an effective way to fight pathogens. Vaccinology experts say vaccine and immunization control is very good.
Substantive consultation: Paweł Grzesiowski, MD, PhD, head of the Department of Prevention of Infections and Hospital Infections at the National Medicines Institute in Warsaw.
Material prepared for the workshops in the series “Quo vadis medicina?” entitled: “Vaccinations as a pass to health”, organized by the Association “Journalists for Health”, March 2010