3 questions really: How does PrEP work? Is it taken every day? If we can create medications to prevent viruses like HIV, why isn’t there a medication to prevent the common cold?
In: Biology
PrEP is a combination of some of the same drugs used to treat HIV, but instead taken preventatively. It’s taken every day. In a person who is HIV+, the drugs work by making it more difficult for the virus to replicate, and thus reducing the person’s viral load. Taken as a preventative, it can keep the virus from gaining a foothold in the first place, and thus preventing it from establishing an infection. It’s not a cure or a magic shield, and while it’s very effective, it’s not perfect.
We don’t have a medication for the common cold for many reasons. First, is that the common cold is not a single virus, but hundreds of different viruses that cause similar symptoms, and they all mutate rapidly. There’s simply no way to make a single medication that can protect against the hundreds of viruses out there, and even if there was, they mutate so fast that the medication would be useless after a while. Second is that medications have side effects. PrEP is not without side effects. It’s not given to just anyone; it’s given to people who have a higher risk of contracting HIV, because for the average person, the side effects do not warrant it. Third, a cold is simply not that bad. You feel kind of crappy for a few days and that’s it. Everyone gets colds. You suck it up, eat some soup, sleep, and move on with your life. Using antiretroviral medications for a cold is like using a nuclear weapon on your house because you found some ants in your kitchen.
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