About infection and immunization

[dan_2018]

Hi there,

I heard for some infectious diseases, e.g. mumps, one does not need to receive vaccination if has already got the infection. This person is immunized due to the presence of the germ in the body while having the infection. His/her body had time to develop B cells, T cells and the rest of the machinery to fight the disease in case of a new challenge. My question is about HPV, one can get the infection and develop symptoms later on, sometimes years after the infection began. Why then does the body fail to clear the infection on its own? Isn't it the same concept so that the body makes immune cells that can fight the virus at some point even during the course of natural infection? Why would an HPV vaccination be more effective?

Thank you for any feedback

[StringJunky]

HPV, and many others, have strategies that can evade the body's immune system and therefore requires manufactured strategies. You can read how HPV does this by clicking this link.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856406/

This is the abstract:

Quote

Role of Innate Immunity against Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Infections and Effect of Adjuvants in Promoting Specific Immune Response

Abstract

During the early stages of human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, the innate immune system creates a pro-inflammatory microenvironment by recruiting innate immune cells to eliminate the infected cells, initiating an effective acquired immune response. However, HPV exhibits a wide range of strategies for evading immune-surveillance, generating an anti-inflammatory microenvironment. The administration of new adjuvants, such as TLR (Toll-like receptors) agonists and alpha-galactosylceramide, has been demonstrated to reverse the anti-inflammatory microenvironment by down-regulating a number of adhesion molecules and chemo-attractants and activating keratinocytes, dendritic (DC), Langerhans (LC), natural killer (NK) or natural killer T (NKT) cells; thus, promoting a strong specific cytotoxic T cell response. Therefore, these adjuvants show promise for the treatment of HPV generated lesions and may be useful to elucidate the unknown roles of immune cells in the natural history of HPV infection. This review focuses on HPV immune evasion mechanisms and on the proposed response of the innate immune system, suggesting a role for the surrounding pro-inflammatory microenvironment and the NK and NKT cells in the clearance of HPV infections.