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:
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)