Viral infections are difficult to treat for a few reasons. Taking what we know about the replication cycles of viruses, explain one of the main obstacles for using drugs to treat infections. How does the use of vaccines overcome this obstacle?
When virus infects a cell, it's genome gets integrated with the host DNA. Then the virus may remain as provirus or undergo lytic division. When the virus remains as a provirus, it is protected from the drugs because drugs usually kill pathogen outside the cell or in the blood stream. This is main reason that it is difficult to treat viral infections. Vaccines against viruses have solved this problem. Usually vaccine against viruses are developed by using viral capsid proteins as antigens. These antigens once within the body of the host, stimulate immune responses against themselves. As such immune system is trained against the virus. So as soon as a virus later enters the body of the host, it is not allowed to attach or enter into the cells but is removed from the body in the form of immune complexes
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