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Serious question: Is going straight to a vaccine the typical route for new infectious diseases? Are treatments the equivalent of a Z Pack or Tamiflu more challe

• arrosenberg 5y ago
  The COVID vaccine is pretty specific to the infection mechanism the virus uses. Azithromycin is a general purpose antibiotic that will kill most bacteria that aren't specifically resistant to it. Definitely more complex to develop - antibiotics can be found in the dirt, mRNA designer vaccines can not. However, the effort that went into the COVID vaccine is akin to a moonshot for the mRNA tech. Costs should come down and the number of ways it's deployed should go up, hopefully both of those will drive further innovation. It really comes down to cost-benefit. Cancer and global pandemics, yes. Designer drugs for minor inconveniences, probably not in the near future.
• wiml 5y ago
  Antivirals are a relatively new development. Historically, your only options for most viral diseases have been supportive care (keep you comfortable or at least alive while your body fights off the infection), vaccination, and of course prevention (hygiene, quarantine, and so on).
• rsynnott 5y ago
  The first licensed flu vaccine became available in the 40s; tamiflu in 1999. And realistically, if we had an antiviral that was as effective against covid as tamiflu is against flu, that… would not be very interesting and we’d still be vaccinating everyone. Antivirals are difficult and slow to develop, relatively new tech, and often not particularly good.