Word: vaccinees
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Because microbial infections keep finding ways to outsmart antibiotics, doctors are convinced that vaccines are a better way to combat bacterial disease. A vaccine is usually made from a harmless fragment of microbe that trains the body's immune system to recognize and fight the real thing. Each person's...
Unlike bacteria and protozoans, viruses are tough to fight once an infection starts. Most things that will kill a virus will also harm its host cells; thus there are only a few antiviral drugs in existence. Medicine's great weapon against viruses has always been the preventive vaccine. Starting with...
But new viruses keep arising to challenge the vaccine makers. They may have gone undetected for centuries, inhabiting animal populations that have no contact with mankind. If people eventually encounter the animals -- by settling a new part of the rain forest, for example -- the virus can have the opportunity to...
Vaccines should, in theory, work just as well for new varieties of disease as they do for old ones. In practice, they often don't. An HIV vaccine has proved difficult to develop because the virus is prone to rapid mutations. These don't affect its deadliness but do change...
Creating a vaccine for each strain of flu isn't exactly simple either. "First," says Yale's Shope, "we have to discover something new is happening. Then we have to find a manufacturer willing to make a vaccine. Then the experts have to meet and decide what goes into the...