Biology · General Awareness

Vaccination and Immunity

997 Questions

This hub presents questions focused on vaccination and human immunity. It covers essential topics such as herd immunity, non-specific immunity, antigens, and historical vaccine developments. These concepts are crucial for general science sections in medical and civil service exams.

Herd immunity functionsNon-specific immunitySmallpox vaccinationInterferon proteinsAntigen propertiesImmunological amnesia

Vaccination and Immunity Questions

Multiple choice

DPT vaccination is for immunization against

  1. Diphtheria, Pneumonia and Tetanus

  2. Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus

  3. Diarrhoea, Pneumonia and Tetanus

  4. Diphtheria, Pneumonia and Typhoid
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

DPT stands for Diphtheria, Pertussis (whooping cough), and Tetanus. It is a combination vaccine used to protect against these three infectious diseases.

Multiple choice

A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. Why would a small protein subunit used in a vaccine fail to stimulate T-cell immunity?

  1. Because of an inherently insufficient antigen concentration.

  2. Because of a lack of carrier determinants.

  3. Because of HLA-related unresponsiveness.

  4. Because of a lack of glycosylation.

  5. Because of a lack of conformation.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

A major concern about subunit vaccines, especially when just short peptides are used, is the variation in ability to associate with the different polymorphic forms of MHC molecules present in an outbred population.

Multiple choice

Which of the following best explains the term - "VARIOLATION"?

  1. The generation of antibody variable regions.

  2. The attenuation of virulent organisms.

  3. Innoculation of scab material into small skin wounds.

  4. The removal of scab material from an individual with smallpox.

  5. A type of gene therapy.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Deliberate attempts to ward off infections by inducing a minor form of the disease were common in China in the middle ages. The practice of variolation as a protection against smallpox spread from India, through Turkey and into Western Europe in the 18th century.

Multiple choice

Which of the following statements is TRUE regarding DNA vaccines?

  1. They are relatively poor at stimulating cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses in mice.

  2. Must be administered on gold particles if they are to be effective.

  3. They are only effective if followed by a protein boost.

  4. May have distinct advantages when preparing subunit vaccines against viruses which frequently alter their antigens.

  5. Require cold storage in tropical countries.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Subunit vaccines require lengthy protein synthesis and purification procedures, DNA vaccines circumvent this and DNA from the current variants of, for example, influenza virus, could be rapidly isolated and replicated for use in a DNA vaccine.

Multiple choice

For providing vaccination against certain bacterial diseases including tuberculosis, the most significant part of the immune response required to be stimulated is __________.

  1. a high titer of antibody

  2. macrophage-activating cell-mediated immunity

  3. cytotoxic T-cells

  4. antibody in the gut lumen

  5. neutrophils
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The objective of vaccination is to provide effective immunity. The particular immune mechanisms which need to be stimulated and the site of the immune response evoked by vaccination will differ for different organisms. Mycobacteria are found as intracellular infections within macrophages and therefore stimulating T-cells to produce macrophage-activating cytokines such as IFN-gamma is appropriate in this case.

Multiple choice

After medical examination, doctor confirmed that Mrs. Gupta is suffering from infectious anergy. In infectious anergy

  1. T-cells become deleted

  2. anergic T-cells indirectly suppress other T-cells

  3. CD80 on the antigen-presenting cell becomes upregulated

  4. MHC class II on the antigen-presenting cell becomes upregulated

  5. T-cells recognize antigen in the absence of antigen-presenting cells
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Clusters of responding T-cells surrounding an antigen-presenting cell mutually support activation and proliferation.

Multiple choice

Which of the following statements does not characterises IgG?

  1. It apears early in the primary immune response.

  2. It neutralizes bacterial toxins.

  3. It can fix complement.

  4. It crosses the human placenta.

  5. It opsonizes bacteria.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

IgM is the class which appears early following the first encounter with a specific antigen.

Multiple choice

Why did some families refuse vaccination for their children?

Directions: Read the passage below and answer the question given underneath. 

India’s polio-free certification, which was awarded by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2014 for ensuring polio did not infect anyone in three straight years, took almost two decades of very hard work. Though vaccination against polio started in 1978 under India’s Expanded Programme in Immunisation, only about 40% children under five were being reached by 1984.
Following the WHO’s Polio Eradication Initiative, India launched its Pulse Polio Programme in 1995 with the target to vaccinate every child under five. It took some years, but it met targets. For successive years, each one of the country’s 26 million newborns was vaccinated against the paralysing infection, not once but repeatedly for the first five years of their lives. The biggest challenges were geography (for example, in the Kosi river belt in Bihar annual floods isolate several hundred families), work-related migration and ignorance: some families would refuse vaccination because they were convinced the drops would make their children impotent.
Ensuring these lifesaving drops reach around 800 million children each year — 172 million children are reached in each nationwide round of vaccination, and then there are sub-national rounds — is a spectacular feat by any standards.

  1. They did not want to immunize their children against polio.

  2. They thought polio drops would make their children impotent.

  3. They wanted to migrate and thought polio drops would induce fever and delay their travelling.

  4. They said immunisation was against their religious beliefs.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The second last sentence of the paragraph gives the answer, 'they were convinced the drops would make their children impotent'.

Multiple choice

What was the condition that India met for receiving a polio-free certification by WHO?

Directions: Read the passage below and answer the question given underneath. 

India’s polio-free certification, which was awarded by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2014 for ensuring polio did not infect anyone in three straight years, took almost two decades of very hard work. Though vaccination against polio started in 1978 under India’s Expanded Programme in Immunisation, only about 40% children under five were being reached by 1984.
Following the WHO’s Polio Eradication Initiative, India launched its Pulse Polio Programme in 1995 with the target to vaccinate every child under five. It took some years, but it met targets. For successive years, each one of the country’s 26 million newborns was vaccinated against the paralysing infection, not once but repeatedly for the first five years of their lives. The biggest challenges were geography (for example, in the Kosi river belt in Bihar annual floods isolate several hundred families), work-related migration and ignorance: some families would refuse vaccination because they were convinced the drops would make their children impotent.
Ensuring these lifesaving drops reach around 800 million children each year — 172 million children are reached in each nationwide round of vaccination, and then there are sub-national rounds — is a spectacular feat by any standards.

  1. Two decades of hard work

  2. No polio infection in three straight years

  3. Ensuring nation-wide vaccinations

  4. Following WHO’s Polio Eradication Initiative
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The first sentence of the passage gives the answer, ‘by the World Health Organization (WHO) this year for ensuring polio did not infect anyone in three straight years’.

Multiple choice

Which of the following words is the closest in meaning to the word ‘isolate’?

Directions: Read the passage below and answer the question given underneath. 

India’s polio-free certification, which was awarded by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2014 for ensuring polio did not infect anyone in three straight years, took almost two decades of very hard work. Though vaccination against polio started in 1978 under India’s Expanded Programme in Immunisation, only about 40% children under five were being reached by 1984.
Following the WHO’s Polio Eradication Initiative, India launched its Pulse Polio Programme in 1995 with the target to vaccinate every child under five. It took some years, but it met targets. For successive years, each one of the country’s 26 million newborns was vaccinated against the paralysing infection, not once but repeatedly for the first five years of their lives. The biggest challenges were geography (for example, in the Kosi river belt in Bihar annual floods isolate several hundred families), work-related migration and ignorance: some families would refuse vaccination because they were convinced the drops would make their children impotent.
Ensuring these lifesaving drops reach around 800 million children each year — 172 million children are reached in each nationwide round of vaccination, and then there are sub-national rounds — is a spectacular feat by any standards.

  1. Integrate

  2. Confuse

  3. Quarantine

  4. Fight
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Isolate means to separate someone or something and quarantine means to separate infected persons from contact with healthy people.

Multiple choice

Vaccines are available for

  1. polio

  2. measles

  3. diphtheria

  4. All of the above
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Vaccines exist for polio, measles, and diphtheria.

Multiple choice

Triple vaccine is given against

  1. Diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus

  2. Diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus

  3. Polio, tetanus, typhoid

  4. Both 1 & 2
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The DPT vaccine covers Diphtheria, Pertussis (whooping cough), and Tetanus. Since options A and B describe the same set of diseases, option D is the correct choice.

Multiple choice

Artificial immunity can be acquired from

  1. vaccination

  2. analgesics

  3. penicillin

  4. all of these
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Artificial immunity is acquired through medical intervention, such as vaccination, where the body is exposed to an antigen to stimulate an immune response. Analgesics are pain relievers and penicillin is an antibiotic, neither of which provide immunity.