Herd Immunity is a feature of all of the following diseases except: September 2008
Correct Answer: Tetanus
Description: Ans. C: Tetanus Herd immunity (or community immunity) describes a type of immunity that occurs when the vaccination of a poion of the population (or herd) provides protection to unprotected individuals. Herd immunity theory proposes that, in diseases passed from person to person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune. Vaccination acts as a so of firebreak or firewall in the spread of the disease, slowing or preventing fuher transmission of the disease to others. Unvaccinated individuals are indirectly protected by vaccinated individuals, as the latter will not contract and transmit the disease between infected and susceptible individuals. Hence, a public health policy of herd immunity may be used to reduce spread of an illness and provide a level of protection to a vulnerable, unvaccinated subgroup. Since only a small fraction of the population (or herd) can be left unvaccinated for this method to be effective, it is considered best left for those who cannot safely receive vaccines because of a medical condition such as an immune disorder or for organ transplant recipients. The propoion of immune individuals in a population above which a disease may no longer persist is the herd immunity threshold. Its value varies with the virulence of the disease, the efficacy of the vaccine, and the contact parameter for the population. No vaccine offers complete protection, but the spread of disease from person to person is much higher in those who remain unvaccinated. Herd immunity only applies to diseases that are contagious. It does not apply to diseases such as tetanus (which is infectious, but is not contagious), where the vaccine protects only the vaccinated person from disease. Herd immunity should not be confused with contact immunity, a related concept wherein a vaccinated individual can 'pass on' the vaccine to another individual through contact
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