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I often talk about how vaccines are a miracle.

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They’ve saved millions of lives.

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But exactly how do they work?

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Well, they connect to the human immune system,

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which is itself, really phenomenal.

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So, when a germ gets inside

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and attacks your body,

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the immune system sees unusual foreign shapes
on the surface

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and then special cells in your body called
white blood cells

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create antibodies that connect up.

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Then your immune system knows

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to go and kill this foreign object.

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The idea of the vaccine is

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instead of having to get sick the first time,

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to develop this immunity,

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we take something that looks like a foreign
bug,

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teach the immune system the shape of this
foreign object

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so it’s ready to attack with antibodies
very, very quickly

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when the real bug shows up.

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So, you can avoid lots of diseases,

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if you’ve been properly vaccinated.

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And that’s why Gavi was created.

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Gavi came up with the money and a plan

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to get vaccines out

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to all the kids of the world.

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If you go back to 1990,

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about 9% of all children died

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before the age of five.

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Now, that number is about 4%

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and these vaccines, that Gavi got out,

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have been critical to that.

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So, it really is a miracle.

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You can read more about vaccines

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and the investments we’ve made

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at GatesLetter.com.