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Asked by Erika Pajimna ❤ to Sinead on 7 Nov 2016.
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Sinead Loughran answered on 7 Nov 2016:
Great question Erika, yes there are medicines which can be used to treat viruses although our immune systems are pretty good at doing that job but sometimes we need extra help. Tamiflu is one anti-viral medicine that some people have heard of as it was a medicine every one wanted to get their hands on back in 2009 when there was a flu pandemic. A pandemic is an outbreak of disease which affects a lot of people and can cause a lot of deaths. Flu is caused by the influenza virus, which is a very clever virus and can change itself easily -that’s reason why we have to get a new variety of flu vaccine every flu season (each year from Sept on).
Vaccines are amazing as they can allow our own immune systems to develop cells and proteins that can fight and destroy viruses. We can use vaccines to protect against more than just viral infection but we have a virus to thank for educating us on vaccination and our immune system in the first place…have a google for cowpox and Edward Jenner to learn more about this or see this nice website produced by Irish scientists in Cork;
http://microbemagic.ucc.ie/about_microbes/good_viruses.html.
Hope that helps….thanks for your interest in viruses.
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Comments
Emma commented on :
Yes, Erika, anti-virals are like anti-biotics, but for viruses! The thing is most viruses are self-limiting, they don’t want to stay too long in your body but are more interested in getting from you into the next person…and the next… And causing an outbreak as Sinead has said. I agree, they ARE very clever! Have you ever had a viral infection?
Ellahorsegirl commented on :
If you had a different job in science what would you do
Sinead commented on :
I think if I wasn’t a scientist I would like to be a detective – I love solving things, cancer research involves a bit of detective work as we are trying to find out who the bad guys are inside the cancer cells and what went wrong.
Thomas commented on :
Using modern biotechnology scientist are making great strides in trying to combat viruses. Therefore it is important that modern biotec is useful to its potential to combat different diseases. This had to be done in a safe way and this is why we have EU regulations to ensure the safe use of GMOs.
Ellahorsegirl commented on :
Thank you sinead and Thomas i think both of the jobs are great ?????????