Vaccines are kind of an outdated procedure as mutating viruses render them ineffective.

Antiviral treatments and vaccines have one inherent seemingly inescapable problem: as viruses evolve and mutate a solution that works today will be totally useless tomorrow.

Researchers at DARPA are however convinced that this problem can be solved. In fact they have even launched a project named INTERCEPT (Interfering and Co-Evolving Prevention and Therapy) that aims to create therapies which adapt to strategies used by viruses when they mutate.

The solution to the problem, largely revolves around the usage of therapeutic interfering particles (TIPs), which essentially are miniscule slices of protein-shelled DNA which infiltrate cells and compete with viruses for protein shells. Since TIPs replicate themselves faster than viruses, the end result is that you end up having a huge chunk of dud viruses, which significantly reduce the impact of any viral attack. You can think of it as a watering down of a stiff drink.

TIPs has an added advantage over vaccines: they are one step ahead in the game since they produce numerous variants. As soon as they start working, it will automatically change on its own.

This, at least is the current thinking.  DARPA’s program has only just begun. DARPA and its partners will first have to develop TIP candidates, then follow it up by conducting long term tests to prove that the program works, and finally refine the process through computer models.

If TIPS works as planned, the impact of virus attacks, regardless of the kind, could be drastically reduced, even when such attacks are very severe, such as Zikka.