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Zombie Apocalypse - Immunity & Vaccine |
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This idea came to me when I was reading a Left 4 Dead fanfiction. I noticed the lack of research when it came to the scientist explaining to the main characters how the process for a cure or a vaccine for a virus happens. It’s even worst when the main character is a scientist and the story focuses on them developing a cure. It’s obviously that not every writer will have such knowledge about how vaccines are developed, how natural immunity works or how scientists do their job.
Research. That’s the most powerful weapon in a writer’s arsenal. If you don’t know something, educated yourself on the subject. Even if you’re writing a fantasy or science fiction story, it makes a huge difference to base your writing on some realism. It’s a great starting point, especially for writing about fictional virus and diseases — even if they’re the magical kind or alien in nature.
I’m not going to focus too much on how viruses, diseases and so on worked. This is mostly a bit of a research reference on what the protocol of an outbreak will be like and what is natural immunity and how vaccines work.
What would the CDC (or any fictional organization similar to it) do if there was an outbreak?
If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It’s likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated. Not only would scientists be working to identify the cause and cure of the zombie outbreak, but CDC and other federal agencies would send medical teams and first responders to help those in affected areas.
To learn more about what CDC does to prepare for and respond to emergencies of all kinds, visit: CDC Organizations Involved in Preparedness and Response Activities
What does it mean when someone is immune to a virus?
Finding someone truly immune to a virus is a great help in fighting the outbreak. Those immune could safely tend to the sick and bury the dead just as smallpox survivors did in the centuries before smallpox vaccine. This could also be valuable when personal protective gear hampers doing delicate tasks. For example, putting IV lines in children’s small veins is hard with three sets of gloves on.
Those immune would have antibodies which could be harvested from their blood plasma to treat new infected victims — as long as they are a good donor match — and may save them by neutralizing what virus they have before it can enter more cells (there is some risk of passing on other diseases like hepatitis or H.I.V., but those are treatable and that’s if the person immune has them). But many factors remain unclear, including which people have antibodies and how much antibody is needed to be protective. The biggest mystery is how the immunity arose, and there is a mix of explanations, like silent infections and or eating/drinking something that was contaminated with the virus.
For example: A surprisingly high proportion of the Gabonese population could have immunity against Ebola. Some theorizes that the immunity came from eating fruits that were contaminated with an infected fruit bat saliva and bushmeat — chimpanzee, monkey, or most probably, large fruit bats, which are a natural reservoir for the virus. They may have each gotten only a tiny dose of the virus, small enough for their immune systems to fight off by developing antibodies. In effect, those who ate them were “vaccinated” by the meal. Others believe that some do have genetic protection because they get infected but never develop symptoms. If scientists knew which genes provided immunity, they could test for them, but they do not.
Speaking of genetic protection, some people carry a genetic mutation that makes them highly resistant to HIV infection. Researchers have yet to figure out why some people have the genetic mutation. This mutation, called Delta32, keeps a protein called CCR5 from rising to the surface of the immune system’s T cells. When CCR5 is on the surface of the cell, HIV is able to latch on to it and infect the cell; when it is not, the cell’s “door” is effectively closed to HIV.
Very few people have this genetic variation, which some scientists think has been inherited from ancestors who survived the massive bubonic plague in Europe centuries ago. About 1% of Caucasians have it, and it is even rarer in Native Americans, Asians, and Africans. A 2005 report indicated that 1% of people descended from Northern Europe are virtually immune to AIDS.
Those lucky enough to be resistant must inherit the HIV-shielding genes from both parents, though having only one parent with the mutation still leaves a child better prepared to defend HIV than having none.
What are antibodies?
Antibodies circulate in the blood stream and can appear anywhere throughout the body. Antibodies, also called immunoglobulins, are large Y-shaped proteins which function to identify and help remove foreign antigens or targets such as viruses and bacteria. Every different antibody recognizes a specific foreign antigen. This is because the two tips of its “Y” are specific to each antigen, allowing different antibodies to bind to different foreign antigens.
Antibodies are produced by the immune system in response to the presence of an antigen. Antigens are large molecules, usually proteins, on the surface of cells, viruses, fungi, bacteria, and some non-living substances such as toxins, chemicals, and foreign particles. Any substance capable of triggering an immune response is called an antigen.
How do vaccines work? Do they work against viruses and bacteria?
Vaccines work to prime your immune system against future “attacks” by a particular disease. There are vaccines against both viral and bacterial pathogens, or disease-causing agents.
When a pathogen enters your body, your immune system generates antibodies to try to fight it off. Depending on the strength of your immune response and how effectively the antibodies fight off the pathogen, you may or may not get sick.
If you do fall ill, however, some of the antibodies that are created will remain in your body playing watchdog after you’re no longer sick. If you’re exposed to the same pathogen in the future, the antibodies will ”recognize” it and fight it off.
Vaccines work because of this function of the immune system. They’re made from a killed, weakened, or partial version of a pathogen. When you get a vaccine, whatever version of the pathogen it contains isn’t strong or plentiful enough to make you sick, but it’s enough for your immune system to generate antibodies against it. As a result, you gain future immunity against the disease without having gotten sick: if you’re exposed to the pathogen again, your immune system will recognize it and be able to fight it off.
Some vaccines against bacteria are made with a form of the bacteria itself. In other cases, they may be made with a modified form of a toxin generated by the bacteria.
Is natural immunity better than vaccine-acquired immunity?
In some cases, natural immunity is longer-lasting than the immunity gained from vaccination. The risks of natural infection, however, outweigh the risks of immunization for every recommended vaccine. For example, wild measles infection causes encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) for one in 1,000 infected individuals. Overall, measles infection kills two of every 1,000 infected individuals. In contrast, the combination MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine results in a severe allergic reaction only once in every million vaccinated individuals, while preventing measles infection. The benefits of vaccine-acquired immunity extraordinarily outweigh the serious risks of natural infection.
Additionally, the Hib (Haemophilus Influenzae Type b) and tetanus vaccines actually provide more effective immunity than natural infection.
 DamnBlackHeart · Mon Dec 15, 2014 @ 01:27am · 0 Comments |
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