Check out this page also in other languages: 🇮🇹 Italian 🇵🇹 Portuguese 🇫🇷 French 🇪🇸 Spanish 🇩🇪 German 🇷🇺 Russian
Below you will find a collection of infographics on COVID-19. When not created by me, you can find the author(s) credits below the illustration. These illustrations aim to answer specific questions I was asked, in a clear and simplified way.
How does the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine work?
The illustration below shows, in a colorful, fun and simple way, what the mRNA vaccine does once injected into our body, and what happens when a human cell encounters the virus with and without vaccination.
Credits for this illustration: Eleonora Nigro (@enigrox)
Here you can see an alternative illustration of what happens during vaccination and to our cells when they come into contact with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease) with and without the vaccination with the mRNA vaccine.
mRNA vaccines are not the only type of vaccine available against COVID-19, but for simplicity are the only ones described in this infographics. Approved COVID-19 mRNA vaccines include those produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Syringe image from Pixabay.
Why are vaccines useful?
Vaccination allows our immune system to “remember” the virus. In case of a future encounter, our body will be able to respond to it in a rapid and effective way.
What is an mRNA after all?
Well, while you might have heard of mRNA vaccines in the recent news headlines, mRNA is all but recent. In fact, mRNA has been produced and destroyed by your cells every second since you were conceived, and it’s naturally part of how our body works. You can find a dedicated illustration in the Cell Biology section.
more illustrations coming soon :)
Credits
For creating the illustrations:
-
Pamela Ferretti: I’m a PhD student in computational biology at EMBL Heidelberg (Germany), where I study bacteria and their role in human health. Twitter: @pam_ferretti
-
Eleonora Nigro: I am a Research Assistant at the University of Copenhagen, where I study bacteria and metabolites interactions in the human gut… Besides studying them, I like drawing bacteria everywhere! Twitter: @enigrox
For reviewing the illustrations and text: Conor R. Walker, Renato Alves and Ivan Kel.
Conflict of interests
None.
Funding
This project is the result of my spare time, and the one of the people that collaborated in the process of making and revising the text and illustrations.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
