CHILDHOOD

IMMUNOLOGY

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 INTRODUCTION
• The childhood immune system functions differently from that of
an adult (Kelly and Couths, 2000)

• Childhood immune system is not fully functional and children

are exposed to a large number of microorganisms

• Five million infants die in the first year of life, 1.5 million of
these deaths are due to infection. The most common causes are
respiratory infection and diarrhoea. Sadly, current vaccines are
not as effective in early life as they are in adulthood

• The infant’s intestinal immune system develops rapidly in the

early postnatal period only as it contacts dietary and microbial
antigens 2
 DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDHOOD IMMUNE SYSTEM

• Maternal antibodies represent the first environment influence

on the nascent immune system( Lemke et al., 2012)
• Presence of bioactive components in breastmilk with
multifunctional properties supports recommendation of
exclusive breast feeding in infants
• Maternal immunity can be either; passsive or active
i. Passive – The presence of SigA, lactoferrin
ii. Active- Promotes immune devt., Priming of immune
system, tolerance

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 FEATURES OF THE CHILDHOOD IMMUNE RESPONSE

• Children Neutrophils have both quantitative and qualitative

deficiencies. Thus, No of neutrophils is lower at birth than in
adult (Lieschike et al., 2010)
• Children have inability to fully activate antigen specific T and B
cell responses as a result of low monocytes that exposes
MHC=II, CD80 & CD86 (William et al., 2009)
• Childhood response to (PAMPs) reduced compared to adults.
This leads to reduced production of key inflammatory mediators
(IL-12) and IFNα

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 Schematic graph of the different arms of the immune response to influenza over
the lifetime of an individual
(Simon et al., 2015)
IMMUNIZATION IN CHILDHOOD
• Immunization is the administration of vaccine to help the immune
system develop protection from a disease.
• Most child vaccines contain a microorganism in a weakened or killed
state.
• Vaccination recommendations for babies are consistent regardless of
whether a baby is breastfed or not
• Vaccines developed to fight severe, life threatening diseases such as
polio, diphtheria and measles provide additional protection.

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 HYPERSENSITIVITY IN CHILDHOOD
IMMUNE SYSTEM
•Hypersensitivity is an exaggerated response to an antigenic stimulus,

•The most common type of hypersensitivity in children is type1Hypersensitivity

which has the symptoms of Allergy, Anaphylactic and Atopic.

•Allergy is due to Autoimmune response of the immune system to its own body
cell

•Anaphylactic reaction is due to binding of the allergen to the IgE surface present
on the mast cell. Example of hypersensitivity reaction in children is Asthma

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 CONCLUSION

The Child immune system is not able to fully wade off

microorganisms because of its relative naiveté making
them highly susceptible while only able to afford low
resistance to infectious diseases.
Children are at their most vulnerable state at this
phase of growth but if children are equipped through the
continual administration of breast milk and vaccines there
may be a drastic positive change In the high moribidity of
neonates worldwide.

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REFERENCES
• Kelly, D. & Coutts, A. G. (2000) Early nutrition and the development of immune function in the
neonate.Proc. Nutr. Soc. 59:177–185.
• Lemke H., Tanasa R.I., Trad A., Lange H. (2012) Function of Maternal Idiotypic and Anti-
idiotypic Antibodies as Transgenerational Messengers. In: Berencsi III G. (eds) Maternal Fetal
Transmission of Human Viruses and their Influence on Tumorigenesis. Springer, Dordrecht
• Simon AK, Hollander GA, McMichael A. 2015 Evolution of the immune system in humans
from infancy to old age. Proc. R. Soc. B 282: 20143085.
• Jones CA, Holloway JA, Warner JO. Phenotype of fetal monocytes and B lymphocytes during
the third trimester of pregnancy. Journal of reproductive immunology. 2002; 56(1–2):45–60.
[PubMed: 12106883]
• Borras FE, Matthews NC, Lowdell MW, Navarrete CV. Identification of both myeloid CD11c+
and lymphoid CD11c- dendritic cell subsets in cord blood. British journal of haematology.
2001; 113(4):925–931. [PubMed: 11442485]
• Langrish CL, Buddle JC, Thrasher AJ, Goldblatt D. Neonatal dendritic cells are intrinsically
biased against Th-1 immune responses. Clinical and experimental immunology. 2002;
128(1):118–123. [PubMed: 11982599]
• Medzhitov R, Janeway C Jr. The Toll receptor family and microbial recognition. Trends in
microbiology. 2000; 8(10):452–456. [PubMed: 11044679]