Vaccines Against Viral Infections

Vaccines are one of the miracles of modern medicine. Without vaccines, the population—particularly children—would be troubled with multitudinous infectious diseases such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and measles, just to name a few. Vaccines are available against both viral and bacterial infections; they have saved millions of lives and continue to do so. The World Health Organization hopes to have vaccinated all children under a year old against most infectious diseases by 2020. The history of the public’s acceptance of vaccines has been a stormy one. Anti-vaccination movements have been active since the creation or development of the smallpox vaccine in the eighteenth century and in government-mandated vaccination until the present. An example of this is the fabricated information spread about the relationship between measles vaccine and autism. A successful polio vaccine was developed in the 1950s thanks to the research of three groups, led by Koprowski, Salk and Sabin, although each of these vaccines has its advantages and disadvantages. An oral vaccine has the advantage of ease of administration and a herd effect. Polio vaccine workers have become targets of extremists in Nigeria and Pakistan. Recently, recombinant DNA technology, was used to develop new vaccines in order to avoid the side effects, since live virus is not involved. The future may see the production of vaccines in edible plants, allowing for cheap production and ease in worldwide distribution.