| His Ideas 20 ~ Information Center (3) |
Frebruary 10, 2021
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| ( ... from the previous story) Why do patients sometimes become negative in a PCR test? ・After the COVID-19 virus sneaks into cells in a human body, there is a certain time period needed for the viruses to reproduce themselves, so in this period of time, it's hard for a PCR test to detect the viruses because they haven't come out from the cells yet. There is a 70 % accuracy rate. Also, a PCR test needs more time in order to analyze the cells. In addition, if there are no viruses in the body, if the patient has recovered, the PCR test will be negative. Another similar test is an 'antigen test', which also detects the existence of the virus. The test costs less and is faster to get the results, but the preciseness is lower than a PCR test. The other is an 'antibody test'. After contracting the virus, the lymph glands will release antibodies against COVID-19, this test detects this process. But, for some reason, in some cases, the antibodies might vanish after the patients have recovered, and, if so, the person might contract COVID-19 again. Will new vaccines work well? ・Coronaviruses are relatively stable. But as transmissions from host-to-host is increased among humans, their RNA base can change, it's called 'mutation', and the mutation might be more dangerous to the carrier. ・Different from coronaviruses, influenza viruses tend to change easily because of their features, so the influenza vaccines' lives are short, like a year. ・Each country's health sector has their own vaccination policies, but on the whole, every child has more than ten kinds of vaccinations, like BCG (tuberculous), tetanus, diphtheria, polio, rubella, chicken pox, measles, etc. ・There is a term called 'training immunity'. After receiving a BCG vaccination, the  body tend to have resistance against other diseases as well. It is thought that it will strengthen the bodies' natural immune system. It's called 'training immunity'. Vaccines have this property, more or less. Children rarely contract COVID-19 and younger people tend not to be seriously effected by it; this might be because these groups have had a lot of vaccines 'recently'. ・There are many types of vaccinations. The oldest one is named 'live vaccine'. They are made from the weakened original viruses. Another is named 'inert vaccine'. They are 'inert', so safer but weaker than 'live' ones. Those vaccines take time to make. The newest ones are 'DNA vaccine' and 'RNA vaccine'. They have never been used before COVID-19. They are fast to manufacture. 300 companies and institutes are said to be developing vaccines for COVID-19. There is a lot of money at stake in developing a vaccination. ・In some countries vaccines are unpopular. For example, the worst case example in this country is that there are about 3,000 women who die of cervical cancer every year. In Finland, nobody dies because the women receive a vaccination. In this country many women used to get vaccines, but now only 1 % of them do. Why? Because years ago people complained after receiving the vaccination about its side-effects. Subsequently, mass communication outlets amplified the complaints, then the authorities became weak and took it off from the essential vaccines list. True, a certain number of receivers of the vaccination had side-effects, but no one died, and the side effects subsided soon. Now a lot of people are dying because of not receiving the vaccination. For the present vaccines for COVID-19, there might be anaphylaxis as a side-effect, but it seems to be a couple of cases out of one million people, and no one has died. [His Idea #20 : Information Center] He really hopes that the government(s) will make websites to introduce scientific trustworthy information, in which people can ask any question and resolve their unreasonable fears and rumors. |
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No.420
*detect: 見つける、検出する
*antigen : 抗原
*antibody : 抗体
*lymph : リンパ
*gland : 腺
*mutation : 変異
*tuberculous : 結核
*tetanus : 破傷風
*diphtheria : ジフテリア
*polio : ポリオ
*rubella : 風疹
*chicken pox : 水痘
*measles : はしか
*more or less : 多かれ少なかれ
*property : 特性、財産
*inert : 不活性
*at stake : 賭けられて
*cervical cancer子宮頸がん
*subsequently : のちに、
*outlet : はけ口
*amplify : 増幅する、誇張する
*essential : 必須
*subside : ひく
*anaphylaxis : アナフィラキシー、抗原抗体反応に基づくショック