How vaccines work: how a shot trains your immune system
Memory cells: why your immune system wins the second time
After a fight with a germ, most of your immune army dies within weeks. A few cells stay behind, sometimes for life. They are why the second meeting with a germ goes so differently from the first.
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The measles fight is over. The antibody factories are not needed now, and most of your measles B cells die off within weeks.
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But a few copies stay behind. They don't send out antibodies. They wait, quietly, and they can wait for many years.
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