Types of Vaccines

When you look at the vaccines available for a particular disease, it's tempting to view them as equal, but there may be vast differences in what they actually do or are designed to do.

Many producers are well versed in the trade-offs between using killed (inactivated) and modified-live virus (MLV) vaccines.

Depending on how a particular disease organism works, killed vaccines may be sufficient. In other cases, MLV vaccines may be required to offer adequate protection. Hollis says a classic example is infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR). Managing the disease requires CMI attacking and killing the virus within the cells; humoral immune response isn't effective by itself.

But even vaccines of the same type can provide different levels of protection. In fact, vaccine labels describe the level of protection.