Immunizing Subinfection, Passive Immunization Active Immunization - Vaccinate Your Pet In Time

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

"We are now freezing and dreaming of spring and the sun, and what this threatens us, we forget. With each melted layer of snow we get a portion of thawed poop! What other surprises, besides bottle fragments, do the snowdrifts keep? Spring comes - then we'll find out."

(From a letter from a friend, also a veterinarian, Maya Belozerova.)

Until the turd thaws, let's talk about vaccination, and at the same time about prevention in general.

Prevention is the foundation of both humane and veterinary medicine. But what can I say, almost any profession: timely technical inspection will save you from an accident, classes with difficult teenagers will reduce adolescent crime, and so on, and so on. Prevention saves nerves and time, but most importantly - life and health! The first thing that comes to mind when it comes to disease prevention is vaccination.

Vaccines have been developed for almost all pets against many (but, alas, not all) diseases. If you have just acquired an animal, then you need to vaccinate it twice, regardless of the season. In the future, vaccination is usually done once a year and it is advisable to time it for the cold season, while all sorts of pathogens doze under a layer of snow. Then, when the accumulated over the winter, you-know-what, emerges, these same pathogens will swarm and swarm and multiply actively …

Vaccine administration is active immunization. What is the point of active immunization? Why is it so named? The causative agents of certain diseases are introduced into the body, and the body itself (actively) learns to cope with them. Why does the disease not develop if real pathogens are introduced?

Background. The word "vaccine" comes from the Latin "vacca" - cow. Yes Yes! We owe the invention of the vaccine to sick cows, cute milkmaids and the English doctor Edward Jenner. Until the 19th century, various infections raged in Europe, smallpox alone claimed millions of lives! Fortunately for humanity, Jenner was not a highbrow urban scientist, but practiced in a small town. From the villagers, he heard that people who have had cowpox (and it is very easily tolerated - a few pimples on their hands and that's all) do not get human. Perhaps Jenner would not have believed the "woman's gossip", but as a man, he could not help but notice that city dwellers disfigured by smallpox are strikingly different from beautiful peasant women with clean faces. It turned out that when milking, smallpox bubbles on the udder burst,fall into the hands of village beauties and leave only small marks on the palms. On May 14, 1796, a great event in medicine (and veterinary medicine) took place - Dr. Jenner made the first vaccination: he cut a little boy's skin on his shoulder and anointed the contents of a vial on a cow's udder. The boy warmed up the day and recovered. A few weeks later, "kind" Jenner injected the same boy with the blood of a man with smallpox … (Yes, that's the way we are, doctors, sadists …) The boy … DIDN'T get sick !!! Hooray!The boy warmed up the day and recovered. A few weeks later, "kind" Jenner injected the same boy with the blood of a man with smallpox … (Yes, that's the way we are, doctors, sadists …) The boy … DIDN'T get sick !!! Hooray!The boy warmed up the day and recovered. A few weeks later, "kind" Jenner injected the same boy with the blood of a person with smallpox … (Yes, that's the way we are, doctors, sadists …) The boy … DIDN'T get sick !!! Hooray!

This was the beginning of active immunization. As you already understood, vaccines are made not from strong, insidious and dangerous pathogens of this or that infectious disease, but either from their harmless "relatives", or from artificially weakened strains, or from killed microorganisms, or even generally only from their parts or exotoxins - proteins produced by a microorganism.

Immunizing subinfection

Once in the blood, the weakened or killed pathogen (or the protein of the pathogen) causes the mobilization of the body's defenses. It's the same as in the army: they took the language, found out all the insidious plans of the enemy, studied his capabilities and began to call and train new soldiers. In the lymphoid tissue of the body, proteins are hastily synthesized - immunoglobulins. Antigen (pathogen) and antibody (immunoglobulin) fit together like a key to a lock. Since the body produces these antibodies on its own, this immunity is quite long-lasting - usually at least a year. It should be remembered that the production of antibodies takes time - at least 10-14 days. At this time, the body is still defenseless against a real enemy.

Only absolutely healthy animals can be vaccinated !!! Remember this once and for all !!! There are exceptions - vaccines against lichen ("Vakderm", "Microderm", "Polivak-TM"), antiparasitic ("Immunoparasitan") and toxoids ("ASP" or preparations prepared directly from the blood of a sick animal) - prescribed as for the treatment of the animal BUT ONLY by a doctor and STRICTLY according to the instructions, and for prevention. For all other vaccines, there is an unshakable rule: vaccinate only a healthy animal! If you vaccinate a sick or even just a weakened animal, then the vaccine at best simply will not work, at worst - if the animal is sick with what it is vaccinated against - the disease will develop in a stronger form.

In addition, there is such a slang word: "struck" - the doctor comes and sees a picture typical of some infectious disease, then this is confirmed by analyzes, but the owners swear and swear that the animal was vaccinated on time. Why can a vaccine "break through"? What subtleties do you need to know? What can affect the effectiveness of vaccination and its safety?

Problems can arise if the vaccine is expired or was stored (transported) in violation of requirements. The vaccine must be stored in the refrigerator and transported in a thermos with ice, a cooler bag or on ice. Do not hesitate - check the expiration date - the responsible doctor will not be offended and will not refuse. If you are vaccinating at home, check the conditions under which the doctor brought the vaccine to you. If you want to buy the vaccine yourself, then choose a reliable pharmacy and carry the vaccine in the right conditions.

Unfortunately, no one is safe from the fact that the batch will not be defective (the virus is not sufficiently weakened in the live vaccine, a cheap adjuvant is used in the manufacture - a substance that enhances immunity, and so on).

The effect of vaccination directly depends on the health of the baby, and it, in turn, on the health of the parents and the normal course of pregnancy. If the parents were not driven out of worms before mating, they were not vaccinated, the mother is too young or, on the contrary, old for pregnancy, the pregnancy proceeded with complications, the birth did not come on time, there were complications in childbirth, the babies did not receive colostrum, and so on - the immunity of the offspring is known weakened. These crumbs require additional preparation for vaccination. Check with your healthcare professional. In addition, more and more cases of congenital immunodeficiency are encountered, especially in breeds bred with a "twist" - one or another genetic anomaly that gives the breed an exotic look. The "beauty" of such breeds is questionable, and health is poor.

The conditions of feeding and keeping are of great importance. This is especially important for babies. Growth and development in themselves is a big load for the body and require an increased content of proteins, calories, vitamins and minerals in the diet, and the production of antibodies is a double load. It has been said more than once about proper feeding and competent giving of vitamin and mineral supplements, I would not like to repeat myself, but: a warm room, comfortable bedding, properly selected food, good vitamin and mineral supplements (especially in the winter-spring period) are the key to health.

Active immunization (vaccine administration)

One of the conditions for successful vaccination is quarantine. During quarantine, you cannot walk with the animal; you should remove outdoor shoes from it. The first 10-14 days after you have acquired a new tenant, you need to let him get used to, settle in, and at the same time observe whether the pet is healthy (new housing is stress, and against the background of stress, problems that have been hidden until now may "emerge"). During this time, it is necessary to remove fleas and ticks, if suddenly there are any, and be sure to give an anthelmintic drug. Parasites, especially worms, not only significantly weaken the immune system, but are also strong allergens. If everything is in order, you can do the first vaccination. A repeat is done after 3-4 weeks, and the quarantine is removed only 10-14 days after the second injection.

Even if a puppy or kitten does not change its place of residence, it can be vaccinated no earlier than two months of age, because before that time there are antibodies obtained from the mother's colostrum in its blood. This phenomenon is called colostral (colostrum) immunity. Antibodies destroy all antigens that have entered the body - be it a dangerous microorganism that can cause disease, or a harmless one contained in a vaccine. On the one hand, during this period, the baby is protected from infection, but on the other hand, it cannot be vaccinated - the vaccine will not work.

During vaccination (and this is not only the day of the injection, but also those 10-14 days that are needed for the production of antibodies), it is important to protect the animal from stress. Stress is not only a fight, explosions of firecrackers during the New Year holidays, the arrival of noisy guests or a move. Stress is also improper feeding, heat, or vice versa - hypothermia. No wonder in our climate all sores are attributed to the "cold". Cold does not cause disease, it only aggravates what the body is already suffering from. If the animal is vaccinated under stress, the vaccine may not work.

Passive immunization (serum administration)

Dogs have additional risk factors due to the fact that they walk and interact with their relatives. The vaccine can "break through" at the end of the post-vaccination immunity period (usually a year), if a particularly strong, aggressive pathogen is caught in the way of the dog, or if the animal has suffered severe stress - for example, an attack by another dog and a fight. This is another argument in favor of the winter revaccination: spring (read: poop that pops up) will not take us by surprise.

A "type" of vaccination is immunizing subinfection. Animals constantly exposed to infectious agents (wandering or having a veterinarian owner) usually rarely get infectious diseases. This is due to the fact that they have minimal, but constant contact with pathogens, and the body develops ways to deal with them. This, of course, is not vaccination in the full sense of the word, but the defense mechanism is the same. By the way, this is why kids, whose mothers do not boil their linen and do not iron diapers on both sides, also get sick much less often and more easily than children of mothers who are fixated on sterility.

There are several disadvantages to vaccination. These are allergic reactions (whatever one may say, an antigen is a protein) and an atypical course of the disease, if the vaccine is "struck". These drawbacks are completely avoidable, and the benefits of vaccination far outweigh. Several rules. If your pet is allergic, give an antihistamine before vaccination. To avoid "breakdown" of the vaccine, follow all of the above vaccination rules. And, finally, if your animal mysteriously gets sick despite being vaccinated, run to the doctor's office! Self-medication and correspondence consultations with a doctor from pharmacies will never give the desired result. Complications after "lightly" and "imperceptibly" transferred infection can be very deplorable.

A few words about passive immunization. If we do not have time to develop our antibodies (say, you found out that half of the dogs from your regular company fell ill with the plague), then serums and globulins will come to our aid. They are obtained from the blood of donor animals, which were injected with antigens, so they already contain ready-made antibodies. Continuing the analogy with the army: if we do not have our own strength to cope with the enemy (we are such pacifists - we were too lazy to get vaccinated in time), we call for help - the Alpha detachment - strong, specially trained guys who will destroy the aggressor themselves. However, there are also some "buts" here. Firstly, it makes sense to introduce serum in the incubation period or on the first day of the disease. Then the body begins to produce its own immunoglobulins and the introduction of strangers is no longer so important. Secondly,sera for one species of animal are often obtained from the blood of another species. In this case, an allergic reaction to a foreign protein may occur, so the administration of serum should be preceded by the introduction of an antiallergic drug. And, thirdly, the serum is not a panacea: as soon as the opportunity arises, observing all the rules, vaccinate the animal. Remember that this can be done only after the passive immunity ends (2-3 weeks).how passive immunity will end (2-3 weeks).how passive immunity will end (2-3 weeks).

And finally - do not overextend the body's immune system. Vaccinations are needed, the use of serums is vital, but do not get carried away! Do not shorten the recommended intervals between vaccinations. Do not use many vaccines in a row: for example, if you want to vaccinate your pet against both viral infections and shingles, then get one vaccine in December, the other in March. Remember that immunity depends not only on the number of vaccinations, but also on the body's ability to adequately respond to them, which in turn is determined by the conditions of feeding and maintenance. Flirting with the immune system can lead to the opposite, disastrous result - immunosuppression, when the body loses its ability to respond and defend.

Good luck and health!