With the absence of a specific drug to treat COVID-19 and the formation of herd immunity through the vaccination process still unable to occur, an idea emerged to create herd immunity using the method of 'letting the infection'. Until now, the vaccine to ward off SARS-CoV-2 infection is still in the development stage, and meanwhile, every day hundreds of thousands of people increase the number of confirmed cases and the lives who die due to this disease are still growing quite significantly. After recovering from a disease, the body will "remember" the infection and the body will have antibodies to fight the virus or bacteria the next time they attack. Just like the vaccination process, when a virus or bacteria enters the infection process, our body will form antibodies against the virus or bacteria. The second way to gain immunity is through natural infections. Automatically, this condition can also protect people who have not or cannot get the polio vaccine in that group, such as newborns, pregnant women, the elderly, or people with weak immune systems, such as people with AIDS, sufferers of autoimmune diseases, and people who are undergoing chemotherapy. Of course, the chance for the poliovirus to spread and cause disease in this group is very small. Imagine, if, at the same time, almost everyone in the same group as that person was vaccinated against polio and had immunity to the poliovirus.
Even if the person is still infected with polio, the impact of polio they will suffer will be less severe than if the person does not receive the polio vaccine. Once upon a time, when a real poliovirus enters the person's body, the person's immune system is ready to fight the poliovirus, so this virus dies and does not cause polio disease. How can vaccination create herd immunity?įor example, when someone gets the polio vaccine, their body will form specific immunity, aka antibodies against the poliovirus. Well, vaccinations are in charge of inducing the immune system to produce these molecules. Antibodies here are molecules that function to help the body fight infection and respond to foreign particles or antigens that enter the body. It aims to "introduce" the virus or bacteria to the immune system, so that the immune system can prepare antibodies, aka "special soldiers" that can fight the virus or bacteria if one day the body is infected. The first is using vaccination, in which the body will be injected with a small dose of virus or bacteria, which is the agent that causes infection, which has been weakened. Immunity itself can be achieved through two things. In other words, the immunity that some people have can help protect others who do not have immunity. These two scientists illustrated herd immunity as the immunity a group has against a disease, which is mostly caused by people in that group have immunity to the disease. Herd immunity, aka community immunity, was first introduced to the world by two microbiologists named William Topley and Graham Selby Wilson in 1923. Herd immunity is not a new term in the world of health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a term called 'herd immunity' has emerged, which is predicted to be the solution to this pandemic.
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