Protection against liver cancer and dementia: CDC on the unexpected benefits of vaccination
Kyiv • UNN
Vaccinations protect against infectious diseases and have non-obvious positive effects. Vaccination reduces the risk of cancer, dementia and antibiotic resistance.
Vaccination is the prevention of specific infectious diseases: measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, polio, influenza, etc. This is a basic idea of vaccination — and it is absolutely correct. At the same time, there are indirect, less obvious positive effects of vaccination on human health.
The Public Health Center, in co-authorship with the head of the National Technical Group of Experts on Immunoprophylaxis (NTGEI), Fedor Lapiy, told about them, reports UNN.
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The tuberculosis vaccine protects against bladder cancer. It is reported that the BCG vaccine, which is administered to newborns in Ukraine, primarily protects against the development of severe forms of tuberculosis, such as tuberculous meningitis and miliary tuberculosis. But its effect is much broader.
In particular, the BCG vaccine significantly reduces mortality among young children. That is, it hardens as an immunomodulator
Also, the BCG vaccine is used to reduce the risk of recurrence of non-invasive bladder cancer or its spread to deeper layers of the bladder. The drug is injected directly into the bladder. Contact of the mucous membrane with the vaccine causes a local immune response, during which immune cells capable of destroying cancer cells are activated.
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The hepatitis B vaccine can protect against liver cancer. It is noted that in children infected with the hepatitis B virus from their mother, the disease becomes chronic in 95% of cases and can lead to the development of cirrhosis or liver cancer. Vaccination of newborns can prevent the development of hepatitis, and therefore — cirrhosis and liver cancer in the future.
Vaccination during pregnancy protects not only the woman, but also the child
Vaccination of pregnant women protects not only the woman, but also the baby in the first months of life, when it is not yet able to get vaccinated. For example, vaccination against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus during pregnancy allows the mother to transmit antibodies to these diseases through the placenta. If a pregnant woman has been vaccinated, the probability of her newborn baby contracting tetanus (fatal for infants) is 88% lower, the course of the disease is mild, and the probability of death is reduced by 92%.
Vaccination as protection against dementia Vaccination against hepatitis A, typhoid fever, diphtheria, as well as a combined vaccine against hepatitis A and typhoid, may reduce the risk of developing dementia in old age, according to a new study.
The mechanism of action is that viral infections can cause prolonged inflammation, which can also involve brain tissue — neurons are damaged and their interaction is disrupted. Vaccination helps prevent these infections or reduce their severity, thereby reducing the risk of inflammation in the brain and subsequent cognitive impairment.
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Vaccination protects against antibiotic resistance It is noted that one of the most acute challenges of modern medicine is the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. The reason is the excessive and often unjustified use of antibiotics, which promotes selection, i.e. selection of resistant bacteria. Every year, the number of cases when conventional drugs do not work is increasing, and patients with bacterial infections do not respond to treatment.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccines that are already in use or are in various stages of development can reduce the number of necessary antibiotic prescriptions by 22% worldwide, or by 2.5 billion defined daily doses annually. By protecting people from disease, vaccination reduces the need to take antibiotics and, as a result, prevents the development of antibiotic resistance.
Vaccination helps prevent diseases during which doctors have to decide whether to prescribe antibiotics
Vaccination even against viral infections helps to reduce the frequency of antibiotic prescriptions. Of course, viral diseases are not treated with antibiotics, but some of them (for example, influenza) can have complications in the form of bacterial infections, such as pneumonia or otitis. And these complications already require antibiotic therapy.
So, by preventing viral infection with vaccination, we simultaneously reduce the risk of situations where antibiotics become necessary.
Also, vaccination indirectly prevents contact with nosocomial infections. Once in a medical facility, a patient is at risk of encountering bacteria that live in hospitals and are highly resistant to antibiotics. Vaccination helps to avoid this risk: the less often a person gets sick, the less likely they are to end up in the hospital.
Facts speak clearly: vaccines play an important role in the fight against antibiotic resistance
