Did you know it is National Immunisation Month in the USA? Or should I say Immunization Month!
National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM) is an annual observance held in August to highlight the importance of vaccination for people of all ages. Never has their been a time in recent history when this message has been needed more across the World. Now the world is united in a shared pandemic shouldn’t this day become an international event?
Talking about history what is the history of immunisation?
The practice of immunisation dates back hundreds of years. Buddhist monks drank snake venom to gain immunity to snake bite and smearing of a skin tear with cowpox to gain immunity to smallpox was practiced in 17th century China.
Edward Jenner is considered the founder of vaccinology in the West in 1796, after he inoculated a 13 year-old-boy with cowpox, and demonstrated immunity to smallpox. In 1798, the first smallpox vaccine was developed. Over the 18th and 19th centuries, systematic implementation of mass smallpox immunisation resulted in its global eradication in 1979.
Louis Pasteur’s experiments spearheaded the development of cholera vaccine and anthrax vaccine in humans (1897 and 1904, respectively). Plague vaccine was also invented in the late 19th Century. Between 1890 and 1950, bacterial vaccine development built, including the BCG vaccination, which is still in use today for tuberculosis.
Alexander Glenny developed a method to deactivate tetanus toxin with formaldehyde in 1923. The same method was used to develop a vaccine against diphtheria in 1926. Whooping cough vaccine development took considerably longer, with a whole cell vaccine first licensed for use in the US in 1948.
Viral tissue culture methods developed from 1950-1985, and led to the advent of the polio vaccine . Mass polio immunisation has now stopped the disease from many regions around the world.
Have you had your Covid-19 vaccination?
Still not convinced you should be vaccinated against Covid-19 visit this site for ten reasons why you should- read more
Advocacy Matters is pro choice- however make sure you have really looked into the facts before deciding not to have the vaccination.