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Vaccines are very different to antibiotics. Antibiotics are agents which kill bacteria, whereas vaccines train the body to respond to infection using its own an
by objclxt 12y ago
Vaccines are very different to antibiotics. Antibiotics are agents which kill bacteria, whereas vaccines train the body to respond to infection using its own antibodies. Vaccines do nothing once you've been infected: they're about increasing your body's immune response to an infection down the line.
Additionally, most of the diseases we vaccinate against are caused by viruses. Whilst it's possible for viruses to mutate, this isn't a huge problem because we can simply modify the vaccine to use the new strain (hence why the flu vaccine is given annually). This doesn't apply for antibiotics: we need to find a new agent, which may not exist.