History tells us that vaccines protect lives
So-called anti-vaxers, who oppose the roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine need to learn the lessons of our often tragic past, says Roger Porkess
WE are all glad to see the end of 2020 and hope that as the New Year progresses we will see a return to normality without the pandemic hanging over us. The roll-out of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the UK makes this a possibility. With the vaccines now available we can hope that in the months ahead almost all adults in the country will be immunised and so the impact of Covid curtailed.
However, this will not happen if the anti-vaccination lobbyists have their way. Many of them are opposed to all forms of vaccination. They see it as artificial interference with their own bodies and claim that it undermines the ability of a population to respond naturally to diseases.
Such people could benefit from working through old parish registers of births deaths and marriages, from before the development of modern medicine. Following a particular family through these records can be a harrowing experience, seeing a couple get married and have eight children but typically six of them die before reaching adulthood. It is hard to imagine how those people lived with the grief that life brought them; how thankful we should be that we are spared it. Vaccination is an important element in the improvement in our health since then; many of the major killer diseases of days gone by, like smallpox and polio, have effectively been eliminated. Opponents of vaccination are invit
ing the diseases that ravaged our predecessors to return.
Those against vaccination claim a population will build up herd immunity without any intervention and that this is a better way to protect us all. Herd immunity occurs when most people who have a disease are unable to pass it on because everyone they meet is already immune. For herd immunity to occur, a large percentage of the population must be immune and the more infectious the disease, the higher the necessary percentage. The figure for Covid is not yet known but for measles it is 95% and for polio 80%. In theory there are two routes to herd immunity: a policy of no intervention and a mass vaccination program.
However, there are serious problems with letting nature take its course. In each generation almost everyone must catch the disease; if it can be fatal some people will inevitably die. Achieving herd immunity from Covid for the present UK population would involve over a million deaths, with more to follow in future generations. By contrast, vaccination has been so effective that smallpox has been eradicated from the whole world and there are many other diseases, like rubella, for which the UK has herd immunity.
Given the success of vaccination as a means of disease control, on both individual and population levels, it is surprising that anyone should question it. We should all see being vaccinated as part of our civic responsibility; the only exceptions are those few who are advised against it for personal medical reasons.
Given the anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and related misinformation in circulation, it is important for people to understand the processes that have brought the Covid vaccines into public use.
They are all made by major pharmaceutical companies with many other life-saving drugs on their books. The research and development work has all been carried out by teams of highly experienced professional scientists, working collaboratively.
The development time was much shorter than usual because the scientists were, by good fortune, able to build on existing technologies used in well-established drugs for other conditions, for example muscular dystrophy, and also on treatments for other forms of coronavirus, such as SARS. Furthermore, the companies’ commitment to the final products ensured no time was wasted between development stages.
All drugs in the UK, including these vaccines, have to go through a rigorous process of testing before they are approved for use. This ensures that they work and meet the safety standards of the MHRA, a body that is independent of the companies involved.
Many vaccines are only effective for a limited time, for example two years for cholera. It is too soon to know the duration of the immunity given by any of the Covid vaccines; if it turns out to be one year it will be similar to the flu jab.
Some people will naturally have detailed questions about vaccination against Covid. There are sources of genuine information, like the NHS website, to help answer them.
It would be a grave mistake to think of those opposing Covid vaccination as harmless eccentrics. They are promoting policies that put not just their own lives at risk but those of everyone else as well, including our dedicated NHS staff.