IMMUNIZATION AGAINST CONTAGIOUS DISEASES

Contagious or infectious diseases undermine the child's health considerably, therefore all measures should be taken to protect the child against infections. Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic bacteria or other microorganisms that multiply in the body and have a harmful effect on it. These organisms (germs and viruses) are capable of producing poisonous substances, or toxins, that poison the body. Having penetrated into the body the causative agents of a disease do not necessarily cause the disease; the body itself must be susceptible to this disease. Having had some infectious disease people do not usually get it again, or if they do they have it in a very mild form.

The state when the body resists or overcomes infection is called immunity. Immunity is a most complex phenomenon in which various protective reactions of the body participate. There exist both specific and non-specific factors' of resistance.

A well-planned schedule, proper diet, regular walks in the fresh air and inurement of the body to various environmental factors help to strengthen the body resistance to disease.

Prophylactic (preventive) inoculations are also very important for the prevention of infectious diseases. In the 18^th century an English physician Edward Jenner discovered that milkers who were affected with cowpox developed blisters on their fingers and subsequently became immune to human pox — smallpox. In 1796 Jenner publicly inoculated an 8-year-old boy with cowpox, using the fluid from a blister on the finger of a milkmaid. Having been inoculated with cowpox the boy did not contract smallpox because inoculation with cowpox produced immunity to smallpox. Jenner's method Was called vaccination (from vaccinia, the Latin for cowpox).

The introduction into the body of a vaccine became known as preventive inoculation. Inoculation is done either under the skin, on its surface, or through the mouth or nose depending on the specific features of the vaccine. The site of inoculation usually reddens, swells and becomes tender. A slight elevation of temperature is sometimes noted, and some mild general malaise may be felt; however, these symptoms rapidly disappear and the person becomes immune to the disease. Being taken by mouth vaccines usually have no side effects at all.

Preventive inoculations are absolutely harmless and provide complete protection against infectious diseases.

Having been introduced into medical practice the vaccines created immunity against many diseases, including tuberculosis, smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, poliomyelitis, typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, tetanus and typhus.

INFLUENZA VIRUS VACCINE FOR ALL AGES

Industrial production of inactivated split influenza virus vaccine, has been launched at the Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Sera in Ufa (Bashkiria).

All vaccines protecting the human organism against the invasion of viruses have a serious drawback: it is not safe to innoculate them, for the development of immunity, to people suffering from chronic ailments, and also to children, for this may entail undesirable complications. So it happens that those for whom flu is particularly pernicious remain practically defenceless in the fight with it. It is for them that the new vaccine is, meant. To explain its advantage in comparison with the existing preparations, it will be enough to decipher the notions "inactivated" and "split".

The first means that the virus in the vaccine has been killed. But that is not all. The destroyed pathogene has been split, with only those components isolated from it which are responsible for protection against flu. Due to this, the vaccine has become harmless, while the immunity it produces is no less stable than any other. For the first time it has become possible to vaccinate children beginning approximately from three-year-olds, and people susceptible to chronic diseases of the respiratory organs and the cardiovascular system.