Ok, me and some friends were arguing today because we got shots for Meningitis immunization.

If someone gets the shot, they have a small bit of the virus in them, if they kiss someone who isn't immunized (it's spread by bodily fluids including saliva) will that person get infected?

But doesn't that small bit of virus die right away?

No, you're thinking of inoculation.

Inoculation is where they give you exactly the same thing as they're trying to protect you from.

Vaccination is where they give you something different, something non-lethal, but will also prepare your immune system for other stuff. 'Vaccination' comes from 'vacca', meaing 'cow'. Edward Jenner in 1796 discovered that farm girls that worked with cows never got smallpox. He postulated that this was because they always got cowpox. Cowpox was bad, it made it you unwell, but it didn't kill you, like smallpox did. So he gave you cowpox, and after the cowpox had cleared up, you were immune to cowpox and also smallpox.

The Meningitis shot is a vaccine.

i believe they give you some of the protien from the virus sheath so that your immune system will regocnize it as a disease just incase you actually come into contact with the whole virus.

No, they won't get meningitis.

I think I've had that jab. And because it's weakened / a non lethal form / something completely different yet still recognisable as something to do with the virus, if your body copes with it, so can anyone elses.

Mikus wins Thanks

I dunno but I'm having my first day off school sick, and I got my vaccine yesterday...

Assuming Avenger is right, it'd be the last thing - something completely different.

And that's why you're sick, Connection Problem, because you've been injected with some disease that is supposed to make you sick, but not kill you.
(Please don't die, or you'll disprove my argument)

Some vaccines consist of something similar, some consist of the virus that has already died and some are a small dose of the same thing but in such a small quantity that your body kills it very quickly (except in rare cases where it multiplies and then its tough :D)

Just remember peeps, just because you've had a vacine it doesn't make you emune. Virus's can mutate or your body can stop making antibodies (which happens after several years).

So enjoy your little pricks but be aware it might not help

God I love giving bad news

Sure they can mutate, but its not a lightning quick process.

Worst pluralisation ever.

Sue me for my bad English.

I know I can't spell or use correct grammer and frankly I dont care. It's readable isnt it

question mark.

A vaccine is a weak version of a virus. It is incapable of lyctic pathway, meaning it cannot infect and take over your body's cells for reproduction. You might already know this, but I'll explain anyways. Lyctic Pathway is when a virus latches onto a cell in your body, hijacks the cell's reproductive machinary and uses it to produce the virus itself. Viruses by definition are incapable of reproduction by themselves. The virus reproduces until it completely fills the cell with duplicates, then the cell blows up, releasing all the duplicates who find other cells and repeat the process. A virus in a vaccine is incapable of breaching cells in the first place. Incapable of reproducing and spreading, it just sits until your body kills it and forms an immunity to it. Only viral menegitis is infectious, I believe. Even so, all you have is a vaccine, so even if the disease itself was infectious, the vaccine cannot multiply and therefore shouldn't be able to pass. So no. You can't pass on a disease through vaccine. Just thought you might want to know why exactly.:)