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Coronavirus: General Study


Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that belong to family of Coronavirus. These viruses are mostly cause of common colds and flu. The coronavirus often attacks respiratory system of humans, causing mild to severe respiratory infections. This virus family is also notorious for SARS outbreak 2003 in China. SARS epidemic spread at a low scale and was controlled in time. Besides SARS, coronavirus also caused MERS. SARS is short form of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome while MERS, an acronym for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. SARS spread from bats to humans and MERS from camels. These respiratory infections killed more than 5000 patients collectively. This data only indicates the deaths occurred during different epidemics, but it's possible that people may have died after that.

Genetic Makeup:
The coronaviruses are single stranded RNA genome viruses and nucleotide bases are enveloped. Their nucleocapsid has a helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses is largest among all known RNA viruses. The name of coronaviruses are taken from Latin "corona" word meaning crown. It is said so because of club shaped protein look like spike. These viruses were discovered in 1930s and caused acute Respiratory problems in chicken. Human coronaviruses were discovered later in 1960s that caused common colds. Two coronaviruses causing problems in human respiratory tract were discovered and codenamed Human Coronavirus 229E and OC43. Later in 2003, SARS was discovered in Chinese outbreak of coronavirus.


Transmission:
These viruses are mostly transferred from human to human through respiratory droplets while coughing or sneezing. It may transfer when an infected person comes in physical contact with an other human. The spikes on surface of coronavirus makes it easy to attach with membrane of human cell, delivering it inside human cell through phagocytosis. SARS virus is believed to be attached to Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 receptors of human cells.

  Human Disease Causing Coronaviruses:
Out of 7 discovered strains of coronaviruses 4 strains are known to cause common colds and flu. Their symptoms are mild mostly sometimes may be severe also. The names of these 4 viruses are given below; 1. Human Coronavirus OC43 2. Human Coronavirus HKU1 3. Human Coronavirus 229E 4. Human Coronavirus NL63 And rest three strains of coronavirus show severe symptoms mostly fatal leading to death like this COVID-19. Names of 3 potentially dangerous strains of coronavirus are; 1. MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) 2. SARS-II (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) 3. SARS-I (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) Vectors: Vectors of coronaviruses are mostly mammalian animals like rabbit, rat, bat, monkey, camel, pangolins. There is no exact information about how these viruses transferred from mammals to humans. But, some scientists suggest they may transmitted through spill over phenomena. I hope you may got a brief idea about the viral family, we will discuss each type of virus alongwith DNA structure, Origin, Cause, Prevention, Disease caused by that virus and Vaccines also. Please follow my blog to get more recent information about health and fitness. Please do add comments if you have a suggestion or any misconception. Thanks.

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