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There are three types of pathogens: (1) germs (bacteria), (2) fungi (fungi), and (3) viruses. Of these, most of the pathogens that afflict many people due to their contagiousness are bacteria and viruses. Many people confuse viruses with bacteria. Viruses and bacteria may look similar, but they are different.
First, the structure of bacteria and viruses is different
A bacterium is a separate, cellular organism. It is composed of cell membranes, cell walls, cell walls, nuclei, and proteins. The structure of a virus is not a cell, as it has a nucleus that contains genetic information, and proteins surround it.
Bacteria are bacteria, single-celled organisms made up of single cells, but they have organs that can live on their own, while viruses have a simple structure made up of nucleic acids and proteins, such as double-helix DNA and single-helix RNA, and cannot produce energy and organic matter on their own.
Germs can multiply anywhere there is food, whether in the air or inside a person's body. Viruses, on the other hand, can only reproduce if they use the cells of living organisms as hosts.
Viruses need a host to survive and multiply, which is why COVID can only live in the body of a human or animal and not in the atmosphere for a long time.
According to Professor Sangsun Yoon of the Department of Microbiology at Yonsei University School of Medicine, bacteria can survive much longer than viruses on hard solid surfaces. In the case of bacteria, because they are independent living organisms, they can react to survive in a difficult environment where nutrients are not sufficiently supplied.
On the other hand, viruses cannot multiply on solid surfaces because they can only multiply once inside the host cell. There are papers that report that 'the coronavirus that is a problem these days has the ability to survive on solid surfaces for about 3~5 days'. If the virus exists outside the host cell, it is considered to be a particle, so the viability of the virus is judged by 'whether it can penetrate into the host cell again and whether it has the ability to multiply after penetration', and in the case of a virus, it loses its viability after 3~5 days.
Viruses are much smaller than germs. The size of bacteria is usually 0.2~10μm (micrometer, 1/1 millionth of a meter), which is enough to be seen with an optical microscope, but viruses are about 1/1000 of bacteria and can only be seen with an electron microscope.
If infectious diseases such as the Black Death, cholera, and tuberculosis are caused by germs (bacteria), respiratory diseases such as influenza, MERS, and SARS, as well as smallpox·AIDS, hepatitis, and food poisoning are all diseases caused by viruses. Viruses (0.1~1% of bacteria) reproduce by using cells as hosts, making them more contagious than bacteria.
The reason why the types of viruses circulating vary from season to season is because the virus is related to temperature. Many studies have shown that when the temperature drops, the virus particles tend to become smaller and more robust. It also has the feature of being able to propagate farther in the air. During the winter months, influenza virus and cold virus molecules are more transmissible.
Another reason is that a 1 degree decrease in body temperature lowers the body's immunity by 30%. It is for this reason that we catch a lot of colds and flu in winter. It's not that the virus disappears in the summer, but that it's present in the environment, but it's not able to survive and therefore can't bother us with strong immunity.
Diseases caused by viruses are more difficult to invent treatments than diseases caused by bacteria.
Professor Baek Soon-young of the Department of Microbiology at the Catholic University of Korea explains, "Bacteria are single-celled, so it is relatively easy to invent a treatment because it is necessary to kill the cell so that it cannot multiply, but since the virus enters another cell that is the host, it is difficult to invent a therapeutic because it is difficult to kill the cell to kill the virus."
Viruses are inside other cells, so to kill a virus, you have to kill the cells as well. It is very difficult for cells to separate virus-infected cells from uninfected cells and kill them. If we were to create a treatment that attacks a virus that has multiplied through human cells, it could be fatal to human cells as well.
Therefore, drugs with mechanisms such as inhibiting the process of viral treatment entering the body or proliferating in human cells are being invented. For example, there are antiviral drugs that prevent viruses from attaching to cells in the body, such as Tamiflu, and antiviral drugs that inhibit the activity of enzymes (proteolytic enzymes) that are necessary for HIV to multiply, such as Kaletra.
Professor Yoon Sang-sun of Yonsei University School of Medicine emphasized "personal hygiene management such as hand washing to prevent the virus." Most of the material that surrounds virus particles is made up of lipids. Therefore, surfactants such as soap can be used to physically wash away viruses, just as you can remove grease stains from your hands. This outbreak will spur the development of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu, but it can take time, so good personal hygiene is of utmost importance.
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