I have already written here about the discovery of the first vaccine by the English doctor Edward Jenner (1749-1823): the inoculation of people with the liquid obtained from the vesicles of cows sick with vaccinia would protect them from smallpox (1796).
In honor of Jenner, the French scientist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) began to use the name vaccination (alluding to vaccinia) for all inoculations administered with the aim of preventing infectious diseases. Pasteur, at the time, would not have imagined that Jenner’s method would eradicate smallpox, but he knew that his discovery was an extraordinary achievement for Humanity. This is how it happened, from 1980 onwards, smallpox became an infection that existed in the past. The virus never circulated again. It never caused epidemics again. It never caused illness again. He never killed again.
Freeing the risk that smallpox previously posed (known, among us, as bladderwrack) would explain the determination to develop preventive actions for other infections, viral or bacterial, through properly planned, managed and evaluated programs.
In this context, it is clear that the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) promoted a public session to mark the 60th anniversary of the National Vaccination Program, in order to publicize new successes that have already been proven to be achieved.
I start at the beginning.
In 1965, doctor Maria Luísa Van Zeller (1906-1983), then Director General of Health, launched the vaccination of children, which from the outset received financial support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Early on, the DGS defined the following as fundamental strategic principles: ease of access, universality and free of charge, with a view to ensuring absolute equity, without any discrimination. In that year (1965), the vaccines on the official calendar were intended to prevent tuberculosis, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough and polio, in addition to smallpox.
Naturally, the National Vaccination Program would evolve depending on the changes that occurred in the epidemiological pattern (morbidity and mortality) and, also, the new possibilities provided by the immense advances in scientific knowledge and technology, which refined the manufacture of vaccines. In this regard, I emphasize that, today, all licensed vaccines are safe. In fact, it wouldn’t make sense for it not to be the case.
In Portugal, the prevention of infections included in the National Vaccination Program, approved by the DGS, is based on the production of protective antibodies to prevent the occurrence of infectious diseases and, equally, to prevent certain cancers.
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Former Director General of Health
franciscogeorge@icloud.com