how vaccinations saved the world.

By the 17th Century, doctors from all around the world were noticing that once a patient recovered from a smallpox infection, a highly contagious disease that killed a third of those infected, they became inoculated and were no longer susceptible to further contamination. In 1721, Lady Mary Montagu, the aristocratic voyager famous for her letters on the Ottoman Empire, brought a form of variolation to England after observing Turkish women in Constantinople. She called it engrafting, and the concept was similar to the Ming Dynasty method: you collect samples of the infection from milder cases and introduce the pus to small abrasions in health individuals.

However, while risky, and many patients still regularly died from the treatment, it was still considered safer than smallpox. The disease killed 300 million people in the 20th century and left survivors disfigured with pockmarks and hair loss, and sometimes blind. People were desperate, and many were willing to take the risk.

It’s easy for us to take vaccines for granted, however, they must still be administered by a trained medical professional. A Registered General Nurse or trained nurse can administer immunisations and vaccines in a general practice or at the patient’s home, providing it is in the patient’s interest. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has guidelines of immunisations but generally, all it requires is a clean and sterile environment, some momentary discomfort and a magic serum teaches your body to protect itself from a highly infectious and potentially fatal disease for at least 10 years. However, as the saying goes, when things are done right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all – and some people wonder about the necessity of vaccines in the modern age.

In Britain, the last endemic case of smallpox was in 1935 and in 1979 it became the first, and to date only, human afflicting disease officially eliminated by vaccinations – a massive part due to previous STEM research. Other nearly forgotten diseases such as polio, diphtheria, rotavirus and many more, are on their way to global eradication, which means the threats are growing smaller and more contained. However, their danger persists. Globally, cases of measles are on the rise and in Europe, this highly preventable disease afflicted 41,000 people in Europe in the first six months of 2018 and killed 37. It’s said that for every person who is infected with measles, 15 more are affected, and those suffering from a mild case of measles lose an average of 10 days of work.

When the population is properly vaccinated, the outbreak can be contained, vulnerable members of society with immune systems too weak to handle vaccines are protected from the disease, a concept known as herd immunity. Of course, with any disease, those with the weakest immune systems, such as the elderly, young, or chronically infirm, will be the ones to suffer most from the symptoms.

The life-saving powers of STEM is vital for our society. We hope to look into a future where diseases become less and less common if STEM discoveries keep being made. However, the current shortage of science and maths teachers means our younger generations may be missing out. Teachers are the most important inspirations for a budding and potentially life-saving STEM career.