How come, after centuries, medical science hasn't found a way to zap an activate!
Question:
How come, after centuries, medical science hasn't found a way to zap an activated rabies virus?
Rabies may not be of much concern to advanced countries, but it takes thousands of lives, painfully, in poorer countries. Shouldn't Western med labs/universities/reasearchers be less chauvinistic about this dread disease?
Answers:
The question that should be asked first is whether any virus can be zapped, and the answer is usually, no. After years of research science has managed to develop a couple of drugs that are effective for treating influenza, which killed more people in 1918-19 than the Black Death and the First World War combined.
In some cases immunisation is effective. But virii are so diverse, far more so than most other biological entities, that a system that might work on one kind is useless on another .
http://www.virology.net/big_virology/bvf...
http://www.tulane.edu/~dmsander/big_viro...