does each specific disease have specific antibodies for it? Or are antibodies a universal viral fighter?
To elaborate... would a hepatitis C antibody be confused with an HIV Antibody or a Flu antibody? I always wanted to know....
Posted by Dark L
Certain anti-bodies fight certain things.
There aren't anti-bodies for JUST the flu and anti-bodies for JUST hepatitis C.
They work in groups. There's weaker ones that are used first to see if that gets rid of the problem, then they move to stronger and stronger ones.
The reason they use weaker ones first is so that your body doesn't just get used to them and then you can never use anti-bodies effectively again.
Posted by tlbrown42000
Well, as a healthcare provider I can tell you that there are antibodies that are specific for each disease. Otherwise, we would not have to give individual injections for individual diseases. Even the flu vaccine is for three viruses predicted to be the most abundant through the flu season. So can you get the flu even with a flu shot? Yes. It is just a virus that was not one of the three. HIV is difficult to come up with a vaccine because the virus keeps mutating and changing. About the time we would get a vaccine for a particular structure of HIV it would change and be different. So back to your original question: would they be confused ? NO.
Posted by ms_Lila
Antigens (invading virus) and antibodies are as specific as a lock and a key. Only one key will open the lock, same is true for antigens being attacked by antibodies, or antibodies being formed.
Hep C cannot be confused with an HIV antibody or a flu antibody because they are specific antibodies per virus. When you have a HEP C blood test or an HIV blood test it is the antibodies that they are testing for. If there wasn't specific specificity then the results wouldn't be accurate.
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