A vaccine for HIV is important because it is difficult to develop safe drugs to destroy viruses.

Why is it difficult to develop safe drugs to destroy viruses?

Tick (✔) one box.

Viruses are not living cells themselves; they are intracellular parasites. This means they invade host cells (our body cells) and use the host cell's machinery (like ribosomes and enzymes) to replicate. Because the virus is so integrated with the host cell, it is very difficult to find a drug that can target and destroy the virus without also damaging the host cell. This is why antiviral drugs can have significant side effects.