WHAT ARE VIRUSES?
A virus is a very small particle that can infect humans, animals and plants and make them sick. They can cause many diseases, including chickenpox, flu and coronavirus!
A virus cannot eat, breathe or move on its own. To survive, it must live inside the cells of another organism. A cell is a small unit that all organisms are made up of. Human beings are made up of more than 75 trillion cells!
There are many different types of cell in the body. For example, there are blood cells, muscle cells, skin cells and fat cells. Different viruses affect different cells. For example, flu and coronavirus affect cells in the lungs while chickenpox affects nerve cells.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
It is important to understand viruses and the cells they affect so that we can stop the diseases that they cause. However, viruses are often difficult to treat because they live inside cells and cells can hide them from many medicines.
This is why making vaccines is important. Instead of trying to kill the virus after it has entered the body, vaccines given before infection help the body to defend itself from viruses. They do this by making people immune to the disease without getting infected.
Vaccines are made from killed or weakened viruses. These are harmless but they teach the body to respond to these as it would to a live virus. This is less dangerous than injecting a live virus. After this injection, the body remembers how to kill the weakened or killed virus. This means that if the body is exposed for real, it already knows how to fight the infection. This is why people who have been vaccinated against a virus are immune to it.
IS THERE A VACCINE FOR CORONAVIRUS?
There is currently no known vaccine against coronavirus. However, researchers are trying to make one and starting to test them on animals. However, even if scientists do manage to create one, they would still need to produce it on a large scale which would take up a lot of time. This means a vaccine may not be ready until the middle of next year!
Until then, the most effective way of preventing infection with the virus is frequent washing of hands, using a tissue for coughs and sneezes and avoiding contact with infected people.
