Essay Examples on London College

Thanks to the widespread use of vaccinations a phenomenon called herd immunity exists among thoroughly inoculated communities Herd immunity describes a level of vaccination coverage that is elevated enough to prevent the spread of a disease within any given population Achieving this widespread immunity is one of the only ways of protecting specifically vulnerable members of society This particularly susceptible percentage of people includes immunocompromised groups such as newborn babies the elderly and those suffering immunologically debilitating diseases or who are affected by impairing medical treatments However herd immunity is a fragile system As the well known phrase goes a chain is only as strong as its weakest link The same concept can be applied to herd immunity in that it is only as effective as the population s proactivity allows it to be Using the example of the Measles virus which was known to have been eradicated in the US by 2000 a society must vaccinate at least 95 percent of its population to maintain herd immunity Evidently the 145 victims of a 2015 Measles outbreak in Disneyland accounted for a vaccination rate of no higher than 86 percent and possibly as low as 50 percent