Curing a Deadly Virus After The Apocalypse

ChickenFreak · Oct 20, 2018

Zombie Among Us said: ↑

Okay, so it seems there's a lot of debate over if there are cures for viruses. Because of this, I have decided to take it upon myself to figure out what's true.
Note: I will not use any excerpts from people on writingforums.org. It feels like I’m calling out or something.

The definition of cure as a verb, according to Bing, is to “relieve (a person or animal) of the symptoms of a disease or condition.” As a noun, it is “a substance or treatment that cures a disease or condition,” and “medicine” is listed as a synonym.
Keeping this in mind, I searched for websites that said if viruses can or cannot have their symptoms limited by medications.
From what I have read, antivirals do exist, but only for certain infections. According to BBC Science, antivirals “work by disrupting a part of the virus' lifecycle. Some interfere with the virus' attachment to the cell; others stop the virus' genetic material being incorporated inside the host cell.” I would consider antivirals to be cures. The websites WebMD and MedlinePlus have text agreeing with BBC Science.
“The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding HIV cure efforts based on this new knowledge, and advocacy groups like amfAR are also pouring resources into not just treating HIV, but also finding ways to eradicate it completely,” TIME Magazine says. This means that scientists are trying to develop a cure for a virus.
The Invasion’s Deposit is a mutated version of influenza type B. A user on Quora has called influenza “self-limiting” and that it can end up killing itself, but I don’t think I want that to be the case in my story for curing the entire world.

I have found one website, fredhutch.org, says that viral infects can only be cured by killing the cells they inhabit, or by having their DNA damaged while not harming Human DNA. However, the article I found this information on focuses on HIV, HSV, and HBV, which are much different than influenza. To see if these claims are meant to apply to all viral infections, I read more, and instead found “in theory you would no longer need the antiviral treatment because the virus is no longer functional,” meaning this website acknowledges that antivirals at least do something.

That’s five sources against one, or possibly six against none if fredhutch has a different definition of cure as the others.

Because of this research, I am now happy with what I have come up with for my story. I would like to once again thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. You may have a different definition of what a cure is, but I’m going with what Bing says.

“For some viral diseases, such as herpes simplex virus infections, HIV/AIDS, and influenza, antiviral medications have become available. But the use of antiviral medications has been associated with the development of drug-resistant microbes.”
From https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/bacterial-and-viral-infections#1

“Some viruses such as influenza are self-limiting, which means it can spontaneously resolve without treatments. Some viruses can cause persistent infections but can be cured with drugs. Examples includes HCV. Some viruses can cause persistent infections and cannot be cured even treated with drugs.”
User submission at www.quora.com/Can-viruses-be-cured

For most viral infections, treatments can only help with symptoms while you wait for your immune system to fight off the virus. Antibiotics do not work for viral infections. There are antiviral medicines to treat some viral infections. Vaccines can help prevent you from getting many viral diseases.
From https://medlineplus.gov/viralinfections.html

“Some, like measles and smallpox, can be defeated with vaccines and drugs.” “Drugs are another line of defence. Unfortunately, they are less effective against viruses than they are against bacteria. Antibiotic drugs kill bacteria by disrupting their cell walls. But virus' external covering, known as the viral envelope, is almost identical to the host cell's membranes, making them difficult to target.” “Some anti-viral drugs have been developed. They work by disrupting a part of the virus' lifecycle. Some interfere with the virus' attachment to the cell; others stop the virus' genetic material being incorporated inside the host cell.” “Used in combination, some antiviral drugs have proved effective against specific viruses. Anti-viral drugs can dramatically prolong the lives of people affected by HIV.”
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21143412

“The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding HIV cure efforts based on this new knowledge, and advocacy groups like amfAR are also pouring resources into not just treating HIV, but also finding ways to eradicate it completely,”
From http://time.com/5190960/no-cure-hiv-but-scientists-getting-closer/

“Any successful cure of viral infection must either kill off all the human cells that contain viral DNA, which would likely be extremely toxic or lethal to the patient, or slice out or permanently damage this DNA while leaving the human DNA intact.”
From https://www.fredhutch.org/en/labs/vaccine-and-infectious-disease/news/faculty_stories/auber_martine.html

Click to expand...

“Cure” suggests that the disease has already been contracted. Vaccines prevent the disease from being contracted. I think that vaccines are more relevant here.

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Curing a Deadly Virus After The Apocalypse

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