Vaccines, vaccination and their role in public health
Within the framework of the project "Public lectures "Polit.On April 22, Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Deputy Director General for Science of the International Institute of Vaccines Mikhail Favorov will speak.Lecture topic: Vaccines, vaccination and their role in public healthThe health status of the population largely speaks about the state of society.
Everyone wants to be healthy and live long. In different centuries, the causes of death were of a different nature, depending on the political and economic situation of countries and the characteristics of the era. If at the beginning of the last century people most often died from infectious diseases, now in many countries the circulatory system fails before all other body systems. In countries with developed healthcare, where heart and vascular diseases are increasingly controlled by changes in people's behavior, centenarians still suffer from cancer, but more and more from brain function disorders (Alzheimer's disease, etc.).
Causes of death in combination with the age of death can be used as a basic indicator of the well-being of the population. If the average life expectancy in the country is 59 years, it means that a large group of people die in childhood or in early adulthood. In our time, this is unacceptable, these deaths can and should be avoided, a person should live to old age. Public health helps to achieve this.
One of the main tools of public health is vaccination. If children and adults are vaccinated, for example, against diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis, pneumococcus and other vaccine-protected diseases, they will not suffer from these diseases and die from them at an early age. Life expectancy will increase and, most importantly, the quality of life will be improved.
Our health is a reflection of the ever–increasing complexity and structurality of life, including the relationship of macro- and micro-organisms (for example, man vs. germs). Unfortunately, we cannot solve all health problems with vaccines, but the best thing that can be done for people is to vaccinate them against those infections against which there are effective vaccines.
Vaccine development is a complex and science–intensive process. Obtaining new vaccines involves many stages of invention, verification, proof of safety and efficacy. To be able to use the vaccine abroad, it is necessary to obtain a certificate from the World Health Organization, which requires certification of production. This is an extremely complex and expensive process, since international experts must check and give a positive conclusion on all stages of production, delivery, distribution of the vaccine to exclude the possibility of contamination, intentional or involuntary changes in the production process, product replacement, etc.
In turn, vaccination of the population is a separate huge and complex functioning system. The word "vaccinate" is very capacious and includes all aspects of vaccination – who should be vaccinated? where to vaccinate? under what conditions? at what age? what should I do if I missed the third vaccination? etc. Vaccines should be delivered at a certain temperature, there should be enough vaccines, they should arrive on time, they should be administered safely, you need to monitor the expiration date of vaccines. These and many other issues of the vaccination program are in the field of science – vaccinology.
A violation at any stage of the vaccine production or vaccination program can lead to complications. Complications that are not explained to the population can generate rumors and affect the population as a whole, so it is very important that all stages on the vaccination path are absolutely transparent and open.
Vaccines and vaccination are a fundamental part of public health and, in many ways, public consciousness. Quoting the founder of the first school of public Health at Yale University, Dr. Charles Winslow (1877-1957), we can say that public health is "the science and art of preventing diseases, increasing life expectancy, creating favorable conditions for health, through organized actions and meaningful choices of society."
The lecture will take place on April 22, 2010 (Thursday) at 19-00 in the Small Hall of the Polytechnic Museum at the address: 3/4 New Square (m. Lubyanka, Kitay-Gorod), entrance No. 9. Passage is free.
Phone for inquiries: +7 495 624-8009.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru21.04.2010