- Innate or Natural Immunity are immune mechanisms we are born with. For example:
- Fever response,
- Cough reflex and
- Mucous membranes.
- Acquired Immunity is obtained as we are exposed to substances that are foreign or non-self.
- These develop over time as a result of an exposure to an antigen.
- An antigen can be any substance that is capable of inducing an immune response.
- It triggers a cascade of events that leads to specific activity against that antigen.
- This allows the body to react more quickly in the future if that same antigen is encountered.
- You can think of the immune system as having two arms, or two different mechanisms that the body uses to protect itself from foreign invaders.
- One arm is humoral immunity
- The other is cellular immunity [6, 7]
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