What is in Those Vaccines?

My brother was in the Army for a number of years. I really enjoyed talking with him about the things he was doing and the places he went. Unfortunately, if we got into the details of military life I soon found myself drowning in abbreviations. The military must have people that do nothing but sit in offices and think about creating new abbreviations. Abbreviations and acronyms abound and before long I would be so lost in them that I didn't have the foggiest notion what he was talking about. I am a determined person and so I would say, "STOP!" and ask what does AIRTZYMX really mean. He would tell me and off we would go conversing away. Many times I would walk away thinking that I was glad I wasn't in a career that used so many abbreviations.

Then one day as I was talking to my soon to be wife I noticed that my beloved field of Microbiology also uses a ton of abbreviations. I suddenly realized that my colleagues and I also dream up more abbreviations than you can shake a stick at. While we are on this topic of vaccinations I noticed that people who aren't Microbiologists may also be up to their necks in abbreviations.

Therefore, I have resolved to clarify and define all these vaccination abbreviations and hopefully make this world of abbreviations seem more sensible to those not studying Microbiology. I hope this will make it all seem clearer.

Let's start with the first vaccine given to children (the day they are born). I know this breaks the rules I discussed in previous articles but I have an explanation for why this vaccine is given when it is (tune in next week for the explanation).

Now back to the subject at hand. The first vaccine a child receives is called the HepB vaccine. HepB= Hepatitis B viral vaccine which protects a person from getting viral hepatitis (inflammation of the liver due to a virus) caused by the Hepatitis B virus. There are other viruses that cause viral hepatitis so this vaccine does not protect you from all viral hepatitis. But Hepatitis B virus is a very nasty one and can cause death (cirrhosis) of the liver.

OOPs I have run out of time and space. Tune in next week and I will give you some more of these abbreviations and what they mean. If you would like to see what other vaccines are available and the abbreviations I will be defining click here.

Take Care and Think Microbiologically!

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