Abstrait

Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI)

Moammad Ahsan Ullaha talukder,

 Vaccination has made enormous contribution to public health, including the eradication of one dreaded disease, small pox, and elimination of poliomyelitis from all but a handful of countries. Simply, the vaccine gives us immunity against disease. It’s a special kind of antigenic substances which provides active immunity to that particular disease. The vaccine is made from particular microbes, killed or weakened or its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. A notorious virus that has killed millions of people worldwide. Thanks to the vaccine, now it is eradicated. Smallpox vaccine, the first successful vaccine to be developed, was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. He followed up his observation that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox by showing that inoculated cowpox protected against inoculated smallpox. The practice of immunization dates back hundreds of years. Buddhist monks drank snake venom to confer immunity to snake bite and variolation (smearing of a skin tear with cowpox to confer immunity to smallpox) was practiced in 17th century China. Edward Jenner is considered the founder of vaccinology in the West in 1796, after he inoculated a 13 year-old-boy with vaccinia virus (cowpox), and demonstrated immunity to smallpox. In 1798, the first smallpox vaccine was developed. Over the 18th and 19th centuries, systematic implementation of mass smallpox immunization culminated in its global eradication in 1979.