Vaccines

Lyn's Comment 28/9/09

Finding a vaccine to prevent HIV is one the ideals scientists are striving towards.

Wikipedia defines a vaccine as "a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains a small amount of an agent that resembles a microorganism. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and "remember" it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters."

A vaccination is explained as "giving someone a substance that makes an immune system react. The immune system is the way a body fights infection. The immune system's reaction makes someone less likely to get that infection.  If the vaccinated person get exposed to the virus or bacteria that causes the disease, the person will fight it and may not get sick."

To explain this more simply: A successful preventative vaccine will 'trick' the body to recognise the HI Virus and destroy it and in this way protect the body against the virus.