Category Infectious Disease

How Vaccine Safety is Monitored

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…

Vaccine Adjuvants

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…

Vaccine Design in the 21st Century

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…

How Vaccines Work

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…