CAM102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 37: Vaccinia, Orthopoxvirus, Edward Jenner
Learning Objectives
• What vaccines are
• The history of vaccination and smallpox eradication
• That vaccination can significantly prevent illness, disability and death from vaccine-
preventable diseases
• The types of vaccines in current use
• That there is no evidence that vaccination with the MMR vaccine causes autism
• The National Immunisation Program Schedule
Definition
• A biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease
• Usually contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism
• Often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins or one of its surface
proteins
• The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognise the agent as foreign, destroy it,
and "remember" it, so that the immune system can more easily recognise and destroy any of
these microorganisms that it later encounters (immune memory)
Key Facts
• Vaccination (immunisation) prevents illness, disability and death from vaccine-preventable
diseases
• E.g cervical cancer, diphtheria, hep B, measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough),
pneumonia, polio, rotavirus, diarrhoea, rubella and tetanus
• Global vaccination coverage has stalled at 86%, with no significant changes during the past
year (should be 95%)
• Uptake of new and underused vaccines is increasing
• Immunisation currently averts an estimated 2 to 3 million deaths every year
• An additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided if global vaccination coverage improves
• An estimated 19.5 million infants worldwide are still missing out on basic vaccines
Vaccine (vacca)
• Edward Jenner created the term "vaccine"
• Derived from vacca meaning cow
• Cowpox was used to protect against a related and more deadly one
• Member of the orthopoxvirus family as well as Variola virus and Vaccinia virus
Smallpox
• Ancient scourge of mankind
• Dates back to 1350 BC (Egyptian-Hittites war)
• Mortality rates: over 40% in the young and elderly
• 10% in the 5-14 year age group
• 100% if haemorrhagic smallpox (e.g. pregnant women)
• Eradicated with live virus vaccine (Vaccinia virus)
• More human lives lost due to smallpox than all other infectious diseases combined
• Smallpox is an acute contagious disease caused by the variola virus, a member of the
orthopoxvirus family.
• Worlds most devastating known disease towards humanity.
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Declaration of the Eradication of Smallpox (doesn't need to be known)
• WHO Assembly May 8, 1980
• Frank was chairman of the Global Commission of Smallpox Eradication in 1977
• Last known case of naturally transmitted smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977
• Greatest achievement of WHO
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Vaccine Types
Persistence of Neutralizing Antibody Following Natural Infection of
Vaccination
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