HIV Protection
Recent studies suggest that the smallpox vaccine provides some level of defense against HIV. Both the smallpox vaccine and HIV exploit a receptor called CCR5, which is expressed on the surface of white blood cells. Researchers theorize that one factor in the sudden spread of HIV in the early 1980s was the result of eradication of smallpox in the late 1970s, and the subsequent and abrupt decline in smallpox vaccinations worldwide.
Read more about this topic: Smallpox Vaccine
Famous quotes containing the word protection:
“We all cry out that the world is corrupt,—and I fear too justly,—but we never reflect, what we have to thank for it, and that it is our open countenance of vice, which gives the lye to our private censures of it, which is its chief protection and encouragement.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)