What are Adjuvants?

About Adjuvants:

• What is it? An adjuvant is a substance that is added to a vaccine to stimulate and enhance the magnitude and durability of the immune response.
• They are commonly used to improve the effectiveness of a vaccine.
• Adjuvants allow for lesser quantities of the vaccine and fewer doses. 
• Generally, they are injected alongside an antigen to help the immune system generate antibodies that fight the antigen.
• Adjuvanted vaccines can cause more local reactions (such as redness, swelling, and pain at the injection site) and more systemic reactions (such as fever, chills and body aches) than non-adjuvanted vaccines.
• Example: Aluminum adjuvants are used in vaccines such as hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanus-containing vaccines etc.

Q1) What is an Antigen?

An antigen is any substance that causes your immune system to produce antibodies against it. This means your immune system does not recognize the substance, and is trying to fight it off.An antigen may be a substance from the environment, such as chemicals, bacteria, viruses, or pollen. An antigen may also form inside the body.

Source: Researchers reveal effectiveness of vaccination against specific types of cancer

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