Why vaccinate?
The Corona vaccination is here — and now? The doubts are great, the vaccination urge rather small. But why do we actually vaccinate? What do we have to consider when vaccinating, what is in the Corona vaccine and who actually benefits from the Corona vaccination?
Why vaccinate?
Infectious diseases were the most common cause of death worldwide before antibiotics and vaccinations existed. Vaccination prepares our immune system for certain pathogens so that diseases can no longer break out. In this way, we not only effectively protect ourselves from diseases, but also people who cannot be vaccinated at all for certain reasons, e.g. because their immune system does not function adequately. For this vulnerable group of people in particular, it is all the more important that their environment is immunized and the spread of the pathogen is thus contained. This community protection for society is also called herd immunity. However, although vaccinations are one of the most effective measures for disease prevention, more than 50 percent of all Germans do not have sufficient vaccination protection.
What are the different types of vaccinations?
Roughly explained, there are two major groups of vaccinations: the active and the passive vaccinations. Active vaccination means that the body is “actively” induced by the vaccine to produce antibodies against a pathogen. The immune system thus reacts “actively” to the vaccine, which can explain the (febrile) vaccination reactions that occur more frequently with active vaccinations. With passive vaccinations, on the other hand, the body is already supplied with the antibodies it needs to defend itself against the respective pathogens. The immune system therefore has no effort to make — the pathogens are “passively” warded off by the ready-administered antibodies. In the group of active vaccines, a further distinction can be made between live and dead vaccines. This does not mean that the patient is alive or dead after vaccination, but that the vaccine contains living and reproducible or dead and non-reproducible components of the respective pathogens.
What do I have to bear in mind when it comes to vaccinations?
In general, if you feel fit, you are fit for vaccination. Even a slight cold or a cold is not a contraindication to vaccination — but a fever above 37.5°C is. In addition, vaccination should not be given in the case of previously known allergic reactions to substances contained in the vaccine (such as chicken egg white in influenza or yellow fever vaccination). Congenital, acquired, or drug-induced immunosuppression is equally problematic for a vaccination program. On the one hand, sufficient vaccination protection is often not achieved (so-called vaccination failures), since the immune system cannot react adequately to the vaccine. On the other hand, especially with live vaccines, but also with inactivated vaccines, an outbreak of the disease to be vaccinated against can occur.
Furthermore, in the case of blood clotting disorders, vaccination should not be administered into the muscle, but directly under the skin, as otherwise painful bleeding into the muscle may occur. Within the first 72 hours after vaccination, pain as well as redness and swelling of the injection site may occur; in addition, the body temperature may be slightly elevated, against which, however, antipyretics such as paracetamol or ibuprofen can be used effectively.
What’s in the Corona vaccine?
The currently approved SARS-CoV2 vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna are a new type of vaccine that has not yet been used against any other disease than Covid-19. mRNA vaccines have the advantage that very many injection doses can be produced very quickly. Basically, these vaccines are comparable to a dead vaccination — they do not contain any “finished” components of the coronavirus, but only the “construction manual” for it — the so-called messenger RNA (mRNA). The mRNA is taken up by our cells, transcribed into (harmless) corona virus proteins and presented to our immune system. Our immune cells recognize these corona components as foreign and start antibody production. If we are now confronted with the corona virus in “the wild”, the body can immediately prevent the inhaled corona virus from multiplying with the antibodies it has already produced and kill it.
Who benefits from the Corona vaccination?
A question that is not so easy to answer, because: individuals benefit from a vaccination only insofar as they are immunized against the specific disease. So if you think that you personally have no reason to be vaccinated at the moment because of your young age or perfect health, you are wrong. Because the real profit of a vaccination is not to immunize individuals, but the whole “herd”. Even if one may not count oneself as a risk group, one only protects risk groups if one also protects oneself. The President of the Leopoldina, Professor Gerald Haug, emphasized that about 70 percent of the people in Germany must participate in vaccination to ensure appropriate herd protection. According to his presentation, about 50 to 60 percent of people are currently willing to be vaccinated.
When will a carefree life be possible again?
The development of currently 186 vaccines worldwide is good news. But this does not mean that the pandemic is over. It will take some time before enough people are vaccinated to achieve so-called herd immunity. To achieve this, the Ministry of Health estimates that 55 to 65 percent of citizens in Germany would have to be voluntarily vaccinated — which would be possible by the end of summer 2021, according to Spahn. Other “experts” — such as SPD health politician Karl Lauterbach — assume an even higher vaccination coverage rate of up to 85 percent, depending on how infectious the virus is and can become through mutations. Virologist Melanie Brinkmann of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research also estimates that 80 to 85 percent vaccination coverage of the population is needed.
Moreover, it is not yet clear how long the vaccines will be effective and what exactly they will prevent — whether only severe courses will be eliminated or the spread of the coronavirus will be reliably contained.
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