14. Doctors in a particular region of the country are inundated with patients wh

Question

14. Doctors in a particular region of the country are inundated with patients who present with a flu-like disease that rapidly progresses in many cases to a fatal outcome. Epidemiologic analysis suggests that a transmissible agent causes the disease and it is found that all patients who succumb to the disease harbor a virus (named the vx virus) that is not found in individuals who remain disease-free. Can we unambiguously conclude that the vx virus causes the disease? If not, describe how the observed results might be consistent with the vx virus not being the cause of the disease and what further evidence would be required to prove that the vx virus truly caused disease.

Explanation / Answer

The evidence seems not sufficient. We refer to Koch's postulate

only the first criteria has been realized in the above experiment. It might be that the true pathogen, in this case, might weaken immunity to the extent that allows growth of the virus vx and hence the observation. SO if the vx virus is to be claimed the cause it must be isolated from affected individuals and shown to induce the symptoms in healthy symptoms (not human of course).

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