What risks are associated with live-attenuated virus vaccines?
What will be an ideal response?
Live-attenuated virus vaccines are mutant viruses that can replicate, albeit inefficiently, in human cells, thus simulating conditions of a normal viral infection. The attenuated vaccine strains of virus have been obtained by growing the virus over many generations in non-human cells (for example monkey cells) so that it acquires multiple mutations that allow it to replicate but prevent it from spreading in the human body and causing disease. When introduced into humans as a vaccine, there is a small chance that some or all of the mutations may revert to the original nucleotide sequence, restoring the properties of the virulent strain of the virus. This occurs very rarely with the poliovirus used in the trivalent oral polio vaccine (TVOP) and, now that polio is very rare in the United States, this vaccine is no longer recommended and an inactivated poliovirus vaccine is used instead. The more rounds of replication the vaccine virus undergoes in the human host before being contained by the immune response, the greater is the potential for genetic reversion. This is why individuals who suffer from inherited or acquired immunodeficiencies should never receive live-attenuated virus vaccines.
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