Word: viral
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Perhaps the most promising of the dozens of other AIDS drugs under development is dideoxycytidine (DDC), which belongs to the same category of drugs as AZT. Like AZT, it works by interfering with viral reproduction, but researchers hope it will prove to be less toxic. Hoffmann-La Roche expects to receive a license to manufacture the drug within the next few months...
...humans as early as this year. But vaccinemakers face several daunting obstacles. Perhaps the most formidable is the fact that the virus mutates and changes its outer coat so rapidly that no single vaccine is likely to be effective against all strains. Researchers are seeking a section of the viral coat that remains unchanged despite the mutations, hoping to use it as a basis for a vaccine...
Health officials have known of the new viral strain (actually a mutation of Type A influenza strains predominant in the U.S. in the 1950s) only since June, when the first cases were confirmed in Taiwan. Pharmaceutical companies, which had already manufactured a single-shot flu vaccine that is effective against three known and anticipated strains -- A/Chile, A/Mississippi and B/ Ann Arbor -- were forced to rush a separate A/Taiwan vaccine into production. Though no one knows how serious this season's attack will be, influenza generally kills 20,000 to 40,000 Americans in a single winter, more victims than AIDS...
...shot candidates include anyone under the age of 35 with chronic health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, renal disease, cancer or a suppressed immune response; parents or siblings of children who are at risk; anyone under age 18 who must take aspirin (the combination of aspirin and a viral infection has been linked to a sometimes fatal brain disorder called Reye's syndrome). People over 35 who are at risk and all those over 65 who are otherwise healthy need take only the standard flu shot...
...that flu marches on, while other viral scourges such as polio and measles have been largely conquered in the developed world? The vanquished viruses, it seems, were relatively stable, seldom changing their structure. This enabled their victims, once infected, to develop permanent immunity and allowed scientists to develop vaccines that were effective year after year. The influenza virus, however, is constantly changing the configuration of its surface proteins. Because of these changes, immune-system antibodies, developed in response to either a vaccination or a previous case of flu, fail to recognize and attack the altered virus. As a result...