On this page, you will find an infographic and video explaining how vaccines generate long-term immunity and how an effective COVID-19 vaccine might work. Scroll down to discover more, click the download link to print the graphic or share on social media tagging @britsocimm to help strengthen public understanding.
Vaccines are the safest way to gain long-term immunity against a virus that your body has yet to encounter. Vaccines train your immune system with a harmless form of the virus, which creates a memory of that specific virus so when you encounter the real virus in the future, it responds faster and more efficiently to prevent infection and stop you from getting seriously sick. This is long-term immunity.
An effective COVID-19 vaccine will produce a strong, long-term, adaptive immune response. It might stimulate B cells and specific antibodies or T cells or a combination of both. More research is needed to understand the natural adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to inform vaccine development.
Knowledge of COVID-19 immunology and vaccine development will continue to evolve and this infographic is accurate at the time of publishing in October 2020.
How does long-term immunity to COVID-19 work and how will this affect vaccine development?
In this video BSI member, Dayana Hristova, explains how the adaptive immune response provides long-term protection to germs, how vaccines take advantage of this natural process to train your immune system and what this might mean for COVID-19 vaccine development.
Knowledge of COVID-19 immunology and vaccine development will continue to evolve and this videos is accurate at the time of recording in August 2020.