What really goes into making your vaccines

Vaccines play a crucial role in protecting us against life-threatening diseases. — AFP

The earliest forms of immunisation recorded involved Buddhist monks drinking snake venom to confer immunity to snake bites and variolation, i.e. the smearing of a skin tear with cowpox in order to confer immunity to smallpox.

Vaccines were unheard of until 1796 when Edward Jenner, widely considered the founder of vaccination in the West, inoculated a 13-year-old boy with the Vaccinia virus, which is part of the poxvirus family, and caused him to develop immunity to smallpox.