Our immune system is our defense against diseases, and we have three types of it—innate, adaptive, and passive. The innate immunity is the body’s natural way to stop the viruses or bacteria from entering the body. Passive immunity is the type of immunity where we receive the antibodies from another source, and it’s usually short-lasting. And eventually, we develop adaptive immunity as we grow and get exposed to pathogens.

Another thing that helps us attain adaptive immunity is the vaccine. When we see how quickly the novel coronavirus is spreading, it’s evident that we desperately need a vaccine to help us with immunization.

How Do Vaccines Work?

Vaccines contain an agent that resembles the microorganism of the disease in question. It’s often made from weakened or dead forms of microbes or its surface proteins. Once it comes in contact with our immune system, the vaccine works as a stimulant and trains the immunity to recognize the microbes as a threat, fight and destroy it, but also to remember the microbes or its surface proteins in the future.

Vaccination is the most effective way to fight infectious diseases, and it helped us eradicate many diseases in the past, for example, smallpox and measles.

Types of Vaccines

Conducting vaccination means that the person that receives the vaccine shouldn’t get sick. Scientists have developed multiple ways of achieving this, which resulted in several types of vaccines:

• Live attenuated vaccines—The pathogen in the vaccine is weakened.
• Inactivated vaccines—The pathogen in the vaccine is killed.
• Subunit/conjugate—Only a part of the pathogen is administered.
• Toxoid vaccine—Harmful toxins from bacteria are deactivated, and the deadly toxins are administered.
• Conjugate—sugar molecules that cover the pathogen are linked to another pathogen’s antigen, and the immune system recognizes the sugar molecules as a threat.
• DNA vaccine—Still in development, the DNA vaccines contain a part of pathogen’s DNA.
• Recombinant Vector vaccine—Similar to the DNA vaccines, but these use a weakened pathogen as the DNA carrier.

Can Herd Immunity Help Against Coronavirus?

Herd immunity is defined as indirect protections against the disease achieved when a large percentage of the population becomes immune to it, be it from vaccinations or previous infections.

Those who became immune can’t spread the disease further, thus protecting others who didn’t get immunity. When it comes to COVID-19, there are two ways we can achieve herd immunity—with vaccination and infection. This is where the problems arise.

It’s not determined whether a person that was already infected maintained immunity for future infections. Another issue with COVID-19 is that a more substantial number of people would have to become infected for humanity to develop herd immunity. We are all aware that this would result in millions of people dying. That’s why the vaccine against COVID-19 is the best solution.

Coronavirus Vaccine Update

More than 140 teams of researchers are doing their best to develop a safe vaccine against COVID-19. 129 vaccine candidates are currently in the pre-clinical phase, which means they are administered to animals.

Of these, 15 have reached phase one, and they’re administered to a small group of people. There are nine vaccine candidates in phase two. These are given to hundreds of people, helping the researchers learn more about safety and correct dosage.

Phase three means a large-scale efficacy trial, and there are only two candidates so far in this phase. None of these is approved for general use so far.

Summary

Our immunity is the only thing that protects us against diseases, but when the virus such as COVID-19 knocks on our doors, the fear is justified.

The chances for attaining herd immunity are small, as many people would have to fall ill, but luckily, there are many ways a vaccine can be developed to help us fight the novel coronavirus and win.