1 Introduction Immunization of pregnant women to protect both the mother and infant from infection is a unique strategy to prevent disease in high risk, vulnerable populations. This approach, utilized for decades to prevent puerperal and neonatal tetanus, is increasingly…
1 Introduction At a time when vaccines save annually millions of child’s lives, it is paradoxical that in many industrialized countries more public attention is given to the possible risks of adverse effects of vaccination than to its beneficial effects.…
1 Introduction Safety expectations for vaccines are high because they are administered to healthy and sometimes vulnerable populations such as pregnant women, infants, and the elderly. Also, vaccines are endorsed or required by most governments, further raising safety expectations. Although…
1 Introduction Today considerable effort is undertaken during vaccine development to identify and measure potential mechanisms of immunological protection. These proposed measurements are then validated by correlation with protection from disease after natural exposure or passive protection, or alternatively related…
1 The vaccine testing paradigm Advances in biotechnology and knowledge of ways to enhance immune responses and immunologic memory have revolutionized the field of human vaccine development, resulting in a vaccine “pipeline” that in recent decades has led to the…
The vast majority of the more than 1 billion doses of vaccines manufactured worldwide each year are given to perfectly healthy people. It is this fact that drives the requirements for vaccines to be among the most rigorously designed, monitored,…
The widespread use of effective vaccines against infectious diseases has been one of the most important public health advances in the 20th and 21st centuries. Early vaccines consisting of attenuated or inactivated pathogens or toxins may elicit robust, protective immune…
1 Introduction Vaccines are well-established medical interventions capable of preventing infectious disease. There are many notable vaccine success stories, starting more than 200 years ago with the earliest work by Jenner that led to a cowpox-based immunization to prevent smallpox…
1 Introduction Most of the current vaccines are delivered through intramuscular or subcutaneous injection. What happens between the injection, the early reaction, and the induction of protective mechanisms is explained in this chapter. Vaccine responses depend on their interaction with…
Abstract Looking back at the past 100 years of medical advances in the prevention and treatment of disease, vaccination is the miracle of modern medicine. In the past 50 years, evidence suggests it has saved more lives worldwide than any other med……