this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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I don't understand one thing about the terminology. Aren't vaccines for prevention, and in this case it's more like a treatment, since the newborn is presumably already infected? Or am I misunderstanding the meaning of the term vaccine?
Vaccines can be prophylactic or therapeutic. In this case, it’s a post-exposure prophylactic, because it’s administered after exposure to a pathogen but before the disease.
What makes the vaccine more effective than actual exposure to the actual virus? I tried googling but couldn't find an eli5 version
The vaccine only contains the part of the virus that trigger an immune response, not the parts that take over your cells and wreak havoc on your body.
In addition, the post-exposure version of the hep b vaccine will contain a dose of immunoglobulin that gives temporary immunity to the disease. So it’s like training wheels while your body starts to produce its own immune response.
I think most therapeutic vaccines just actually give you the necessary antibodies to go up against the infection.
"Patients affected with chronic viral infections are administered with therapeutic vaccines, as their immune system is not able to produce enough efficient antibodies."
Would you prefer to test your smoke alarms by:
The entire point of the vaccine is to prevent the virus. If you wait until you’ve been exposed to the virus, you’ve defeated the entire purpose of the vaccine.
In the context of this discussion, you HAVE been exposed to the virus. To use your analogy, you're hitting the test button when your house is already on fire. Hence the reason why I asked the question in the first place
Oh, I misunderstood. My apologies.
Hepatitis B takes 60-90 days to incubate. Because of the slow incubation, the vaccine works best if started within 24 hours of exposure, and can still work if administered up to 7 days after exposure. Newborns are typically exposed during birth, not while growing in the womb.
Compare to, say, the COVID-19, where the incubation is 2-14 days. The vaccine takes about 10-14 days to set in, so if you take it post-exposure in most cases you’ll be done with the actual infection before the vaccine even starts working.
Oh interesting. I hadn't considered they could be isolated from it during pregnancy.
Yeah, the placenta is pretty bad ass
In this given example, I would rather use a cigarette or something to make sure the actual sensor works because for all I know the test button just makes sure the alarm can sound, but not if the thing can detect smoke.
I have no parallel with this on vaccines except maybe wondering if they gave me a placebo.