Question

A child was exposed to a disease-causing virus (most likely chicken pox from the Varicella zoster virus) when he was 5 years old. At 12 years old, the child encounters the same virus again. What is most likely expected to happen?

Answer 1

Answer: What is expected to happen is that the secondary immune system acts immediately against the virus.

Explanation:

When a virus first enters our body, in order to defend itself, the body must first recognize what the antigen is in order to fight it through antibodies. Once it does it will keep a memory of it that it can use if this virus enters the body again. This will be done through the secondary immune system.

As the body already recognizes the antigen, it knows how to fight it immediately, generating a thousand times the amount of antibodies generated the first time.

Thanks to its memory cells, the virus will remain much less time in the body.