Active and passive immunity, vaccine types, excipients and licensing

Baxter, David

Epidemiology and Health Sciences, Stopford Building, Manchester University Medical School, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK

Correspondence to: David N. Baxter, Epidemiology and Health Sciences, Stopford Building, Manchester University Medical School, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK. e-mail: [email protected]

Occupational Medicine 57(8):p 552-556, December 2007.

Immunity is the state of protection against infectious disease conferred either through an immune response generated by immunization or previous infection or by other non-immunological factors. This article reviews active and passive immunity and the differences between them: it also describes the four different commercially available vaccine types (live attenuated, killed/inactivated, subunit and toxoid): it also looks at how these different vaccines generate an adaptive immune response.