Is it possible to vaccinate every person on Earth?

Throughout its existencehumanity, it is constantly fighting various viruses. In the 14th century, for example, it was a plague that claimed the lives of a third of the world's population (25 million people at that time). And 100 years ago after the First World War, the human species faced a new scourge - the Spanish flu epidemic, which grew into a pandemic and took the lives of 50 million people. Not to mention the smallpox epidemic that happened regularly. Many have a logical question: is it possible to take and vaccinate the entire population on Earth in order to avoid epidemics and, in the future, pandemics?

Vaccinations could stop one virus, but not all

We rewind 200 years ago, in 1796. It was then made first smallpox vaccineBritish doctor Edward Jenner put hereight year old boy. They tried to infect the boy several times with “smallpox”, but failed. Since then, vaccinations against smallpox have been given to millions of people, but the last sick smallpox was registered in only 1977 in Somalia! Fortunately, smallpox later ceased to exist in nature, now its samples are stored in several laboratories and that’s all.

The problem turned out to be that the virus is not onlyquickly spreading - he mutated, and although the disease continued to be called smallpox, it was completely different. And the vaccines that they did against smallpox virus earlier turned out to be ineffective. Well, besides, no one vaccinated every inhabitant of the planet: if large countries and cities could afford it, then in Africa and South America they did not hear about vaccination for a very long time. And so far, volunteers have come to many African tribes to vaccinate the locals. They go there not only to help others: in many respects this is justified by preventing the spread of new diseases.

During the raging Spanish flu, noonly elderly and immunocompromised people, but also young and completely healthy. Almost lightning-fast death of a person occurred due to the fact that the lungs of the infected person were filled with liquid, as a result of which the person literally drowned without water.

Why do vaccinations

In modern conditions to instill the entire population of the planet just impossible. It is necessary to find every person in every country, on an island, somewhere else - if you set such a goal, you can achieve it no sooner than 200 years later, as in the case of the smallpox epidemic. Although mass vaccination is quite effective: in the history of the USSR there is an example when it may have helped save the whole country.

In 1959, an artist flew from India to MoscowAlexey Kokorekin. And on the second day he died. An experienced pathologist concluded that the patient died of smallpox, although at that time it seemed that the disease would not return. In the USSR, the disease was overcome by universal vaccination back in 1936. And here is a new case!

Doctors were not taken aback, and law enforcementbodies with the KGB quickly began to search for all the artist contacted. The KGB of the USSR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Health established and isolated absolutely everyone who at least somehow intersected with the infected. Even the things that after the artist’s trip ended up in commission stores in Moscow were seized, and all visitors to these stores were set up and quarantined. Needless to say, the observance of quarantine was very strict - the police were on duty around the clock.

No one expected the outbreak of a new smallpox virus in Moscow

Then the city leadership decidedclose Moscow on entry and exit to prevent the spread of infection. All roads, railways and air lines were blocked. And while some doctors made contact with the infected, others deployed a headquarters for urgent vaccination of the population - special aircraft brought vaccines from all over the country. Fortunately, the virus was not new, and the vaccine was in the right quantities.

Every week, 10 thousand vaccination teams drove around Moscow, who injected 1.5 million residents. And soon all 7 million inhabitants of the city were vaccinated.

Only vaccines helped stop the smallpox virus in 1959

Do you know how many people were infected with smallpox in the end? 46 people. And only 3 people died. Smallpox virus repaid in a month.

Vaccination of people

Obviously, large-scale vaccination makes sense, thisan example proves its necessity in the event of a serious infection. Of course, this practice could not be applied with coronavirus - at least because it is a new infection that cannot be vaccinated so quickly.

It looks like smallpox virus

And what if, then, in the USSR, they ran intoa completely new virus? Now we don’t know. Most likely, there would be more victims, but at least quarantine would be observed much more strictly until the doctors developed a vaccine. The spread of the virus could be localized within the same city or region.

Now vaccines are more afraid than infectious diseases. This fear has caused outbreaks of measles and whooping cough in Russia, Europe and the United States.

The idea to instill the Earth’s population now is no more,than utopia. At least because in 1960, 3 billion people lived on our planet, and now more than 7.5 billion. It’s not even twice as much. Plus, a lot depends on the inhabitants of a particular country: some would react to vaccination responsibly, while others would let it go by itself. In addition, young parents ignore WHO's regular warnings about the benefits and necessity of vaccination, and they are especially distrustful of official statistics. They assure that as part of vaccinations it is often possible detect hazardous substancesfor example mercury. But urban air contains far more dangerous substances than vaccines.

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Scientists agree that in order to stop the spread of the same flu, enough to instill 40% of the population. But even in modern conditionsimpossible. One thing we know for sure: evidence-based medicine refutes a person’s “innate immunity” from dangerous infections. Thanks to vaccination from the first days of life, the world's population today is 7.7 billion people. But no one knows how much it will be in 10 years.