• Question: Why does our body make symptoms (sometimes) when a vaccine is inserted?

    Asked by Matterforn to Ben, Lizzie, Francis, Max, Sian on 8 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Sian Richardson

      Sian Richardson answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      There are several types of vaccines. Live vaccines are small doeses of the real micro-organism, dead micro-organisms, sometimes just fragments of it can be enough for a vaccine to work. I vaccine works by making your body think its been infected by the micro-organism so your body will produce antibodies to fight it. So you are looking to get an immune response but not as bad as the real thing. This protects you in the future if you are exposed to that particular pathogen

    • Photo: Lizzie Wright

      Lizzie Wright answered on 10 Mar 2018:

      Exactly what Sian said! We use vaccines to produce a tiny response to a virus. Special types of white blood cells called B and T cells can remember the virus and are ready to attack it if we encounter the actual virus.

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