One of five vaccine types. It’s made using chemicals to inactivate viruses or bacteria to safely induce immunity.
This is a traditional vaccine technology platform and several inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidates are in trials. The inactivation process destroys the pathogen’s ability to replicate or reproduce but keeps it “intact” so that the immune system can still recognize it and can develop antibodies to fight against the virus. Newer vaccine approaches include genetic vaccines.
TIP: Inactivated is generally used rather than ‘killed’ to refer to viral vaccines of this type.
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Prevention Vaccines