[Ukastronomer (Jeremy)]

Originally Posted by lewism

unfortunately, medical science has yet to cure a virus. Immunise against, yes, but cure, no. (and eradicate, but not yet cure) treat the resulting symptoms is the only approach at the moments, then find immunogens to work up to an vaccine.

Take hiv for example - no cure, and with the rapid rate of mutation (within months), patients require a large cocktail of drugs to help combat the ailments caused by and the weaknesses in the immunity caused by the virus.

A virus is not a living thing - it is merely a capsule (termed a capsid) of rna and dna plus other biochemicals bound in a protein shell. It is literally incapable of reproducing itself outside of a mitochondrial cell, and hijacks the cell into splicing in it's own gene markers to reproduce itself (mutated from the parent and the host). As jeremy pointed out a few post backs, you can't "kill" a virus, but you can causes it's lysis through strong alcohols and certain other disinfectant solutions (bleach, alcohol, peroxides and so on). Anti-bacterial wipes - which woolworths majura is sold out of lol - are completely ineffective, as are many of the "disinfectant" wipes, being insufficiently concentrated (sufficient concentration causes issues in humans). This is why virii are so difficult to do anything with - typically what "kills" a virus, kills the host when applied in the macrocosm.

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