A History of Vaccination Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cowpox

The vaccine was created in 1796 when Jenner realised that milkmaids who had suffered the milder infection of cowpox were immune to smallpox. It was this discovery that gives us the name of vaccination and vaccine, based on the Latin name of vacca, meaning cow.

It's hard to imagine what a leap of faith it must have been for people of that era to allow Jenner to treat them with a serum taken from cowpox. Smallpox was often a fatal disease and even those who survived were usually left disfigured with pockmarks, so the risk was worthwhile. The vaccine was refined over the years and smallpox has been declared as eradicated since 1980.

Monkeypox is more recent and the great pox is another name for syphilis, and caused by bacteria not viruses.

Answer: Rabies

Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux are the men who came up with the first rabies vaccine, in 1885. Rabies was nearly always fatal, but the scientists created a vaccine by using cells from a dead rabbit, known to have died from the disease. The virus was weakened, by being allowed to dry, before being administered to a boy who had been attacked by a rabid dog.

A course of injections was used over a period of ten days, with stronger doses being used each time. The boy survived without developing rabies, becoming the first human to receive the vaccine. It had previously been tested on dogs.

Answer: Diphtheria

Diphtheria is a bacterial infection which affects the nose and throat and was often fatal, especially in children. The bacterium which caused the illness was not identified until 1883 and attention then turned to creating a vaccine. The infection causes a membrane to form in the throat which restricts the airway causing choking. If the bacteria enter the bloodstream, they can cause heart inflammation, known as myocarditis.

Although various anti-toxins had been used previously, the first effective diphtheria vaccine dates from 1923. Gaston Ramon, a scientist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is one of the men who developed it while Alexander Glenny, in the UK, independently created a similar vaccine, so the credit should be shared.

Answer: The scientists who created it

The initials stand for Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, another vaccine which was developed at France's Pasteur Institute, this time in Lille. Although the vaccine was created in 1921 and was used widely in Scandinavian countries, the UK did not authorise its use until 1953 and the USA never used it extensively.

Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bacteria and is spread in the air. It primarily affects the lungs, but can spread to other parts of the body including bones and the brain. There is evidence that TB was around for centuries but in the western world it is particularly associated with the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many people died young from the disease, which was known as consumption. Antibiotics are an effective treatment and vaccination is much less common in modern times, especially in the developed world..

Answer: Salk's

Poliomyelitis, usually referred to just as polio, is an infectious disease caused by a virus. It attacks the nervous system, including the spinal cord, causing paralysis which can lead to death if it affects the respiratory system. Epidemics were frequent, with many deaths. The World Heath Organisation's website refers to it killing or paralysing half a million people worldwide in the mid twentieth century.

The need for a vaccine was urgent and the first breakthrough came when scientists in Boston isolated the virus which caused it. Jonas Salk created the first known vaccine in 1953, testing it on himself and his own family, before trials on children. His vaccine was authorised in 1957, but Salk refused to patent it and willingly shared his knowledge with other scientists. Albert Sabin's experiments used weakened versions of the virus (Salk's used dead viruses) which was easier to administer in bulk and also prevented the disease from spreading. Eventually, Sabin's version became the widely accepted method of vaccination.

Answer: Tetanus

Diphtheria has been covered earlier in the quiz while pertussis is the medical name for whooping cough. The vaccine is given early on in a child's life due to complications which can arise from these illnesses in young children.

Tetanus is a bacterial infection which affects the muscles and causes them to spasm. The first indications are spasms in the jaw, giving the disease its alternative name of lockjaw. It is passed to humans in spores found in soil, which is why gardeners have to take particular care. Effective vaccines against tetanus were developed in the first half of the twentieth century, and were given to military personnel prior to World War II.

Answer: Chickenpox

The V in the acronym refers to the varicella-zoster virus which is responsible for the illness. It is a common childhood illness, easily spread by contact, and causes a rash which turns into very itchy blisters. If scratched, which is hard to resist, they can leave permanent scars.

The vaccine was originally developed in Japan in 1970s, with versions being created in other countries during the 1980s. It was officially authorised for use in the USA in 1995, with the combined version mentioned in the question becoming available in 2005.

Answer: Shingles

Shingles is a reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, the one which causes chicken pox in children, which lies dormant in the body for life. It can flare up in adult life as a painful rash, normally on one side of the body only, which blisters in the same way as chicken pox. The difference is that the pain is much more severe and can affect the nerves, meaning than the pain can persist long after the rash has cleared.

One vaccine, Zostavax, created by Merck, was authorised in 2006 and there are several other versions. Vaccination is routinely offered to older people, with some countries starting as relatively young as age fifty. The UK still offers it to those in the age range seventy to seventy-nine in the 2020s. The virus is more likely to cause long term effects to older members of society.

Cold sores are another viral infection which can live on in the body. As we enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century there is no vaccine available but active research is ongoing to find one.

Answer: AstraZeneca

The COVID-19 outbreak began in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and soon spread to become a worldwide pandemic. The disease, carried in the air, caused respiratory distress and often led to death especially among older people and those with weakened immune systems. The ability of the virus to mutate led to new strains, adding to the pressure on medical personnel around the world.

Vaccines were urgently needed and research was already in progress due to earlier respiratory diseases such as SARS and MERS. These vaccines were based on messenger RNA which had been studied since the 1990s. The high death toll meant that approval was given to vaccines against COVID much more speedily than usual with the first ones being passed for use in 2020.

AstraZeneca is a UK/Swedish company with headquarters in Cambridge, England.

Answer: Ebola

The vaccine is used to protect against Orthoebolavirus zairense, the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus, named for the Ebola river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It causes haemorrhages, internal and external, among other symptoms and is frequently fatal.

An outbreak in 2014 in West Africa led to emergency approval of vaccines which were at various stages of development. At the time, the most advanced of them had been tested on other primates, but not on humans. The severity of the outbreak led to the vaccines being offered to alleviate suffering.

Ervebo became the only vaccine authorised for use during an epidemic by the World Heath Organization (in 2019), while a preventative vaccine was authorised in 2020.