Editorial: Mucosal Vaccination: Strategies to Induce and Evaluate Mucosal Immunity

ABSTRACT

Prevent transmission - prevent infection - prevent disease. To achieve this trifecta, a pathogen must be intercepted at the earliest stages of encounter with human tissues. Considering that the majority of infectious agents enter via mucosal surfaces, sterilizing immunity is difficult to achieve with a classic systemic vaccination approach. Injected vaccines almost exclusively induce humoral and cell-mediated immunity in the systemic compartment, and thus, they primarily arm the host to fight infectious agents that have already penetrated the body.