Making Filipinos invulnerable to measles
Sometimes, a scare is just a scare. The bad thing with scares, though, is that the scare makers can be scary themselves. Nevertheless, measles continue to be a vaccine-preventable disease in children. Research literature states that its complications are relatively low, compared to varicella (chicken pox). The Public Health Reports (February 2019, E. Conis) referred to measles as a “mild” to “moderate” disease of childhood. Its complications are less severe compared to such familiar diseases as small pox, polio and diphtheria. Countries (developed, developing or underdeveloped) around the world today are targeting measles for eradication.
So, how does vaccination eradicate measles in the Philippines? The key effect here is the development of the children’s protective immune system.
First, measles vaccines contain non-infecting forms of the measles virus or its closer species that can elicit a specific antibody against the measles virus. Second, when a child is vaccinated, the non-infecting virus, which enter the child’s body, stimulate the production of antibodies against these harmless organisms. Third, since God designed the human body to be a capable self-protector internally, the child’s blood—particularly those active in selfprotection (the immune system)—develops specific capabilities to destroy the non-infecting virus. The body destroys foreign organisms in the body as an instinct for survival. The blood components involved in this function are the so-called white blood cells. They are far smaller than the red blood cells that make our blood look red. Fourth, each time a child is vaccinated, the number of white blood cells that are capable of fighting measles increase significantly, so that when the measles virus attacks the child, these white blood cells quickly destroys the measles virus. Thus, the child will not show symptoms of measles infection. That means, the child is now immune to measles.
Last, when enough vaccination doses are given in a span of months as the doctor recommends, the measles-fighting white blood cells become a normal population among other white blood cells in the child’s body. That makes the child immune to measles eventually for life.
When all Filipinos have those measles-fighting white blood cells, then measles can then become “eradicated” in the Philippines. It is so not because the measles virus has disappeared but because Filipinos are now invulnerable to the measles virus.