14 DAY TRIAL // Even if this piece of news comes after most people already got the flu or the common cold, which is caused by the Human Rhinovirus (HRV), scientists announced that they might have just finished sequencing the genome of the most common viral strain. This will, over the years, provide researchers with enough information about how the pathogen works so that they can start devising novel ways of addressing common cold epidemics, and of stopping the spread of HRV. Eventually, once enough knowledge is gathered, a cure for the disease could also be devised.
Up until this point, 99 strains of the virus are known to biologists. These strains can be found all around the globe, but they mutate from year to year, which makes finding stable cures for them next to impossible. However, experts from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSM), in Baltimore, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) managed to map the genomes of all these strains, thus creating the most complex scientific image of the HRV in existence.
“We know a lot about the common cold virus, but we didn't know how their genomes encoded all that information. Now we do, and all kinds of new things are falling out,” explains UWM researcher Ann Palmenberg, who is also the co-author of the new study detailing the find, published in February 13th issue in the journal Science. According to the paper, there are potentially hundreds of strains of HRV in existence today, grouped in two major families – HRV A and HRV B.
Among the novelties brought forth by the investigation, the scientist enumerates the fact that two more viral families – HRV C and HRV D – are also theoretically possible, and that they most likely exist today, to be discovered by scientists. This is very important to know, because adults in the US alone develop the disease 2 to 4 times per year, while kids catch it as much as 10 times per year. This translates into $60 billion-worth of costs per year in America alone.
The thing about HRV is that if you buy a vaccine against one of 99 strains, it will not protect you against the other strains. And you can't exactly go and have 99 shots in a week or a month. Therefore, the necessity of finding the “final solution” is paramount. A vaccine would save discomfort, would help you save money, and would also eradicate one of the most widespread diseases in the world.