Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If you get an infectious disease, can you have just enough immunity to reduce the symptoms, but still suffer some symptoms because you aren't completely immune? Or is immunity more like an on-off switch, that you either are or aren't immune, period?
If you have partial immunity to a staph infection or flu infection, what kind of reduction of symptoms would you have, that would indicate you had partial immunity? The kind of staph infection that gives you a rash and makes you sick: could it be reduced to just giving you a rash without making you sick? Or the kind of flu infection that gives you extreme exhaustion, muscle weakness, and other symptoms: could it be reduced to just some symptoms and not others? Or could it be reduced to a shorter duration of some symptoms?
Is there a general rule, for how to tell a disease is reduced by partial immunity, vs being a milder strain of the same disease?
If you get a flu shot, then get infected by a different strain of flu than the ones covered by the shot, some people say you will have milder symptoms. Is that what's meant by partial immunity? What exactly do they mean by milder symptoms? A lower frequency of coughing or sneezing? Being able to get out of bed and not being totally exhausted? A lower temperature fever? But even if the symptoms are milder, they last the same number of days?
There is no way to tell whether you have "partial immunity" or not. Some diseases you get once and are highly unlikely to get them again, like measles. Others you can get more than once, such as whooping cough.
There may be genetic factors that make it harder for a particular bacteria or virus to set up an infection or cause symptoms. For example, there are some people who have genetic mutations that prevent HIV infections and some who have genetic features that allow infections with HIV that never progress to AIDS.
Many infections do not cause symptoms in a significant number of people, including influenza. Researchers are trying to identify the genes that may affect that.
"Your antibody levels might not be high enough to completely protect you, but they’ll still help—the CDC has seen vaccinated patients with measles who only get a rash for about an hour, says Wallace."
The rash usually lasts 3 to 5 days in unvaccinated people.
A vaccine can cause you to produce antibodies that might be active against strains not included in the vaccine itself. That can provide partial protection against other strains.That is being seen with HPV vaccine. Fortunately, many vaccines protect against all the potential strains. Measles is one of those.
Last edited by suzy_q2010; 10-18-2016 at 11:09 PM..
There is a village in England where a few people were immune to the bubonic plague. Researchers are studying the DNA of their descendents see if they can isolate anything.
There is a village in England where a few people were immune to the bubonic plague. Researchers are studying the DNA of their descendents see if they can isolate anything.
It's not just one village, and it appears to be the gene that protects against HIV, too.
It's not just one village, and it appears to be the gene that protects against HIV, too.[/url]
I've been in HIV research and it's called the CCR5-Δ32 mutation. The C-C chemokine receptor type 5, CCR5, on the surface of your T-cells, is one of the main ways HIV infects your T-cells. The virus also uses CXCR4 sometimes.
With this mutation, the CCR5 receptor becomes nonfunctional, which in turn, protects against certain strains of HIV (there's many different strains). CCR5 Δ32 has an (heterozygote) allele frequency of 10% in Europe, and a homozygote frequency of 1%.
The only person to be "cured" of HIV, known as the Berlin patient (although he is American), had HIV and was also dying from acute myeloid leukemia (AML), then he underwent a hematopoietic stem cell transplant which almost killed him, but he survived and the donor actually had the CCR5-Δ32 mutation, so after the donors cells engrafted into his bone marrow, the HIV inside of him couldn't infect his new T-cells.
If you get an infectious disease, can you have just enough immunity to reduce the symptoms, but still suffer some symptoms because you aren't completely immune? Or is immunity more like an on-off switch, that you either are or aren't immune, period?
If you have partial immunity to a staph infection or flu infection, what kind of reduction of symptoms would you have, that would indicate you had partial immunity? The kind of staph infection that gives you a rash and makes you sick: could it be reduced to just giving you a rash without making you sick? Or the kind of flu infection that gives you extreme exhaustion, muscle weakness, and other symptoms: could it be reduced to just some symptoms and not others? Or could it be reduced to a shorter duration of some symptoms?
Is there a general rule, for how to tell a disease is reduced by partial immunity, vs being a milder strain of the same disease?
If you get a flu shot, then get infected by a different strain of flu than the ones covered by the shot, some people say you will have milder symptoms. Is that what's meant by partial immunity? What exactly do they mean by milder symptoms? A lower frequency of coughing or sneezing? Being able to get out of bed and not being totally exhausted? A lower temperature fever? But even if the symptoms are milder, they last the same number of days?
I can answer part of this post.
If you get a flu shot and get infected by a different strain, there may be some cross-over protection from the vaccine, and in general your symptoms may be milder, e.g. less cough, shorter duration of body aches, fever, etc.
The Spanish Flu of 1918 that killed 50 million worldwide mostly killed people under 40, instead of older people, the usual victims of influenza. Why? Scientist believe that a slightly earlier version of that flu in 1899, called the Russian Flu, gave people alive then a partial immunity to the later Spanish Flu.
Other "descendants" of the Spanish Flu, like the Asian Flu of 1957, the Hong Kong Flu of 1968 and the Swine Flu of 2009 have also likely conveyed similar partial immunity.
I've been in HIV research and it's called the CCR5-Δ32 mutation. The C-C chemokine receptor type 5, CCR5, on the surface of your T-cells, is one of the main ways HIV infects your T-cells. The virus also uses CXCR4 sometimes.
With this mutation, the CCR5 receptor becomes nonfunctional, which in turn, protects against certain strains of HIV (there's many different strains). CCR5 Δ32 has an (heterozygote) allele frequency of 10% in Europe, and a homozygote frequency of 1%.
The only person to be "cured" of HIV, known as the Berlin patient (although he is American), had HIV and was also dying from acute myeloid leukemia (AML), then he underwent a hematopoietic stem cell transplant which almost killed him, but he survived and the donor actually had the CCR5-Δ32 mutation, so after the donors cells engrafted into his bone marrow, the HIV inside of him couldn't infect his new T-cells.
Perhaps I have simply missed the news. But I have not heard that this treatment has been tried on others with HIV as a means of arresting the disease.
Perhaps I have simply missed the news. But I have not heard that this treatment has been tried on others with HIV as a means of arresting the disease.
It's a matter of risk. HIV can now be controlled with medication that has much less risk than a stem cell transplant.
Also, finding a matching donor who also had the protective mutation would be extremely difficult.
It was just serendipity that the guy who was cured of HIV had a donor with the mutation.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
