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Science of bioinformatics counters anti-vaccine hoax
What most people do not know is that bioinformatics has made the vaccines much safer products than before.
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Through gritted teeth: A schoolchild is given a vaccine by a worker from a community health center in Aceh. (JP/Hotli Simanjuntak)
A
n anti-vaccine movement has been overwhelming social media in our country. They are well organized and respond swiftly to any counterattack aimed at their campaign. What they are ignoring is a World Health Organization (WHO) publication, which states that vaccination greatly reduces diseases and economic impacts.
It is interesting that the anti-vaccine movement was first popularized in the United States at the end of the 19th century when British anti-vaccinalist William Tebb visited that country. This movement has since spread quickly to the rest of the world, including Indonesia.
This situation somehow creates doubts and disbelief regarding the vaccination procedure, with people believing that the conventional methods for vaccination are unsafe. What most people do not know is that bioinformatics has made the vaccines much safer products than before.
Bioinformatics is a multidisciplinary science that combines biology and information technology. Biomedicine, as the frontier of medical sciences, has greatly benefited from bioinformatics because wet laboratory data can be managed to generate insightful information for vaccine development. Various sophisticated biomedical instruments require data management to cope with the flood of information coming from them.
