How does Immunity Protect us From Disease?
Immunity is the body’s way of preventing disease.
The immune system recognizes germs that enter the body as “foreign invaders” called antigens and produces proteins called antibodies to fight them.
The first time a child is infected with a specific antigen (say measles virus), the immune system produces antibodies designed to fight it.
This takes time.. usually, the immune system can’t work fast enough to prevent the antigen from causing disease, so the child still gets sick.
However, the immune system “remembers” that antigen.
If it ever enters the body again, even after many years, the immune system can produce antibodies fast enough to keep it from causing disease a second time.
This protection is called immunity.
