Don't Hate On Pigs!

Yes it is the swine flu season and Yes it is caused by pigs but hey, this doesn't mean we have to hate on those poor animals afterall IT IS NOT their fault!

What really causes this disease, like we've mentioned before, is a VIRUS!

These poor animals have been infected just like the people who have been too. Do we hate infected people? NO! no no no! we try to help them. Human beings, animals, and plants are all living things that need oxygen and food to survive let's put our hands together and show love because it is afterall the best cure for everything!

Are We Safe?

So far we've talked about the virus and what it causes, but if every human infected with a virus died we would have been half of the amount of what we are today which means humans have a solution for almost everything including a virus infection. How is that so?

Viral infections in animals provoke an immune response that usually eliminates the infecting virus. These immune responses can also be produced by vaccines, which give immunity to specific viral infections. However, some viruses including HIV and those causing viral hepatitis evade these immune responses and cause chronic infections. Microorganisms also have defences against viral infection, such as restriction modification systems.

Antibiotics have no effect on viruses, but a few antiviral drugs have been developed. However, there are relatively few antivirals because there are few targets for these drugs to interfere with. This is because a virus reprograms its host's cells to make new viruses and almost all the proteins used in this process are normal parts of the body, with only a few viral proteins.

Can you name 3 types of vaccines that you know and what viruses they're used to cure?

Evil Viruses

There's no doubt that you have heard of Swine Flu.
It has been the topic of this year and guess what? It's a virus.

How did the Swine Flu virus begin? This is how:

Swine influenza was first proposed to be a disease related to human influenza during the 1918 flu pandemic, when pigs became sick at the same time as humans. The first identification of an influenza virus as a cause of disease in pigs occurred about ten years later, in 1930. For the following 60 years, swine influenza strains were almost exclusively H1N1.


What does this Virus look like? Take a close look:

This virus is an evil one. Thousands of people have died due to the infection and alot more are currently sick. A specific medication is not known yet but it has been confirmed the TamiFlu is necessary medication with no extreme side effects. Use the tip of the day posted right after the Blog title for tips about how to avoid this virus.

Can you come up with 3 evil viruses?

The Living and Non-living Organism

     In 1898, Friedrich Loeffler and Paul Frosch found evidence that the cause of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock was an infectious particle smaller than any bacteria. This was what introduced the word viruses which are genetic entities that lie somewhere in the grey area between living and non-living states.

Reproduction:


   Viruses depend on the host cells that they infect to reproduce. When found outside of host cells, viruses exist as a protein coat or capsid, sometimes enclosed within a membrane. The capsid encloses either DNA or RNA which codes for the virus elements.

How it Functions:

   When it comes into contact with a host cell, a virus can insert its genetic material into its host, literally taking over the host's functions. An infected cell produces more viral protein and genetic material instead of its usual products. Some viruses may remain dormant inside host cells for long periods, causing no obvious change in their host cells (a stage known as the lysogenic phase). But when a dormant virus is stimulated, it enters the lytic phase: new viruses are formed and burst out of the host cell, killing the cell and going on to infect other cells.

Now, can you label the parts of the virus in the picture?

Virus Invasion Dance

Viruses…

Are bacteria the only organisms that attempt to enter our bodies and cause disease? NO!
The “ virus” is another type of invader…

The most interesting people, things, or even emotions are those that have no middle but definite extremes. Viruses happen to be one of the most amusing extremes that scientists from all over the world never stopped exploring. Viruses, for so long, have been used to cure people and yet have been the number one reason in ending their lives. How so? This website explains it all when viruses decide to dance...

                                                              

Viruses are much smaller than bacteria, they cannot be seen with a regular light microscope but with an electron microscope instead. They are called obligate pathogens because NO ONE has ever found them in the absence of disease conditions and NONE has ever grown free of other living cells.

Are all viruses dangerous? Why yes? Why not?