"Indeed, pathogens have developed a broad arsenal of different survival strategies in the macroorganisms, which for convenience and with the risk of oversimplification can be categorized in terms of warfare. Toxin producers such as anthrax bacilli have chosen biowarfare, whereby the toxin rather than the pathogen itself attacks the human host. Other microorganisms such as influenza virus have chosen a ‘blitzkrieg’ strategy to overwhelm the host rapidly. At the other end of the spectrum, several pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis or herpes viruses have chosen trench warfare; this allows for an apparently peaceful coexistence over long periods of time, with the risk of disease activation at a later time point once the host defense line has been weakened. Others are even more malicious. HIV, for example, has chosen guerrilla warfare, undermining host defense by attacking the central regulator of the immune response — the helper T cells. Equally malignant are pathogens such as Trypanosoma cruzi that initiate a civil war in which the immune response attacks our own host cells under the false impression that it is attacking the invaders."
such a sleek analogy.
taken from Kaufmann SHE and Walker BD, Host Pathogen Interactions, (2006), Current Opinion Immunology, 18:371-373.
