Eli5: What happens when germs die? Do they essentially disappear?
In: Biology
to add to the other replies…your body will also respond to dead germs or parts of them recognized as foreign and illicit an immune response to them, but the dead germs or fragments won’t cause the disease the normally would when they were still active or alive. That’s how some vaccines work – they introduce these parts or dead or living but inactivated (= scientists took away their ability to infect your cells and reproduce/replicate) germs or viruses to your immune system. If you then get infected with the actual pathogen (disease causing organism. That greek word roughly translates to “suffering producer”), your immune system already knows it’s something foreign and that it should fight it right away before it can spread and cause a lot of trouble in your body.
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