AIDS ?

[neutrino_cannon]

I don't understand why it's so hard to cure AIDS. Is it constantly mutating? I really don't know much about viruses...

Not only is HIV (the virus is what mutates, all cases of AIDS fit the same fundamental criteria) constantly mutating (there are plenty of variants, all differing a little) but it's hard to make a vaccine simply due to the way HIV operates. A vaccine primes the immune system and allows it to recognise a virus, either with dead or weakened virus. HIV attacks the immune system, so even if the immune system is primed against it the immune system is still under attack. At that point it's just a battle between the virus and immune system, and given that the virus reproduces by killing immune cells (releasing thousands of viruses every time it kills another cell) I know where my bets are.

 

[sorgoth]

Just..

I'm not an expert or anything, but this just occured to me...


Since viruses go INTO a human cell, interacting with the DNA, and therefore having a slightly different 'base of operations' so to say, each time, would that help explain their higher mutation rates? (I seem to remember reading somewheres that viruses mutate more than bacteria)