Get To Know Viruses That Are Dangerous Apart From Corona

JAKARTA - The corona virus or COVID-19 has spread in a number of countries, including Indonesia. This virus has killed thousands of people within a few months.

Apart from COVID-19, there are many types of viruses that are more dangerous. Before explaining about some of these dangerous viruses, it's good for us to recall what viruses actually are, how they originated, and how to prevent them.

Actually, the word virus according to Mades Fifendy and M. Biomed in their book Microbiology (2017) comes from the Latin word venom which means poison. This is interpreted because almost all types of viruses cause disease, both in plants, animals and humans.

Viruses have a unique characteristic, namely if they can replicate in living cells like living things, on the other hand, if they are outside the cell, they become inanimate objects, so they are often referred to as particles.

The first time the virus was discovered by Dimitri Ivanovsky (1892), a Russian scientist, and Beyerinch (1899), a Dutch scientist. The two found the virus in tobacco leaves which is called mosaic disease.

The virus has a very small size, between 25-300 µm - 1 µm equals 1 / 1,000,000 m - the smallest virus is the polio virus. Its body length is only 25 µm. Meanwhile, the largest bacteria attack viruses with a body length of 100 nm and the TMV virus with a body length of 300 nm. Due to their tiny body size, viruses can only be seen using an electron microscope.

Meanwhile, viruses come in many forms. Some are round, rod, oval, and look like the letter T. The ones that are round are for example the influenza virus and the AIDS virus, while the rod-shaped ones are for example the TMV virus, the oval-shaped viruses are the rabies virus, and the T-shaped ones are for example viruses that attack bacteria.

How the virus spreads

In order to reproduce, viruses need a living cell environment. Therefore viruses infect bacterial cells, animal cells, plant cells and human cells. One way is called lysogenic. In lysogenic infection, the virus does not destroy cells, but integrates with the stem cell DNA. From there the virus will multiply when the host cell divides.

As explained earlier, the virus that attacks mangroves can spread to animals via insects. Then the insects that are exposed to viruses from plants are eaten by animals, until finally the animals are eaten by humans. In addition, according to Fifendy et al (2017) "Viruses that attack humans can enter the body through food, drink, air, blood, wounds, and bites, including saliva."

Dangerous viruses

Apart from the new corona virus or COVID-19, there are several more dangerous viruses, including Ebola, HIV, Marburg, Rabies, Smallpox.

Ebola: As is well known, this virus damages body tissues and cells which can cause death in less than two weeks. Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the body parts of Ebola sufferers such as blood, feces, urine, saliva and sweat.

Marburg Citing livescience.com, Scientists identified the Marburg virus in 1967, when a small outbreak occurred among laboratory workers in Germany who were exposed to infected monkeys from Uganda. This virus is similar to Ebola in that both can cause dengue fever which causes a person to have a high fever and bleeding throughout the body which can lead to shock, organ failure and death.

The mortality rate or mortality rate of this outbreak at the beginning of its discovery was 25 percent. However, in the 1998-2000 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the death rate shot up to 80 percent according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Rabies: Although rabies vaccines for pets were introduced in the 1920s which helped make the disease extremely rare in developed countries, it remains a scourge in India and parts of Africa.

As is known, this disease can destroy the brain. If a person does not get special care after being infected with this virus, then 100 percent can result in death.

HIV Still according to livescience.com, in this modern era the most deadly virus is most likely HIV. "It is still the biggest killer," said Amesh Adalja, an American infectious disease doctor.

An estimated 36 million people have died from HIV since the disease was first recognized in the early 1980s. "An infectious disease that is currently the biggest victim of humanity is HIV," said Adalja.

Smallpox Now the smallpox virus may have been taken for granted by many people. Plus in 1980, the World Health Organization declared the world free from smallpox.

But, before that, humans had been battling smallpox for thousands of years, and it killed 1 in 3 people who were infected with the virus. Even though there were survivors, it made the victims leave permanent scars and often became blind.

Can the virus in the body be killed?

Some people think the virus can be killed with antibiotics, but according to the hellosehat website, it is not. This is because the characteristics of viruses are different from bacteria. The reason is, antibodies are to kill bacteria.

Viruses can be killed with something known as an antivirus or antiviral. Antivirus is designed to inhibit the viral infection process. Because as previously explained, the virus is only possible to reproduce by infecting the host cell.

This effort can be done in various ways, one of which is by blocking the virus from reaching the host cell. so that the release of material possessed by the virus can be prevented before it reaches the nucleus of the host cell that it wants to infect.

Various types of antivirals have been developed, targeting the enzymes and proteins of the infected host cell, which are then used to combine new parts of virus particles and prevent them from functioning properly.

Meanwhile, to prevent this virus from attacking the body, we can do it with vaccines. Vaccines can reduce the risk of the virus infecting by cooperating with the body's natural immune system of the host cell. Vaccines help the immune system fake the infection. This process triggers the immune system to produce antibodies.