3 ms·
It probably doesn't help that the immune system is what it infects.
by FreeFull 13y ago
It probably doesn't help that the immune system is what it infects.
- chimeracoder 13y agoI'm not a biochemist, but my understanding is that that's less relevant than you might think, especially if you're talking about vaccinations. Vaccines can have a number of different mechanisms of actions, not all of which involve the immune system (at least, not the way you probably think of the immune system). For example, in 2007, scientists were excited about the prospect of emerin[0] - it turns out that by knocking emerin out of cells' membranes, it becomes difficult for HIV to penetrate the cells. Before an individual seroconverts, it's possible for the immune system to "fight off" HIV, and this happens sometimes (which is part of why transmission rates are not 100%). It's just a question of whether this is effective enough against all strains in order to be used as a vaccine (as well as the costs or side effects of doing so). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerin
- niels_olson 13y agoI think the point was that a virus that affects systems other than the immune system but doesn't adversely affect the immune system doesn't generally allow damage to all other systems. As a whole, very few viruses can cause multi-organ system failure. HIV creates an internal environment that allows any and all other systems to fail.