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The virus is very stable. Transmission can occur by respiratory droplets or via faeces, with swimming pools being a common source of infection. A total of 57 serotypes, grouped into 7 species, have been found in humans; they cause a wide range of illnesses including mild respiratory infections, conjunctivitis and gastroenteritis.
Life-cycle of a typical virus (left to right); following infection of a cell by a single virus, hundreds of offspring are released. When a virus infects a cell, the virus forces it to make thousands more viruses. It does this by making the cell copy the virus's DNA or RNA, making viral proteins, which all assemble to form new virus particles. [37]
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. [1] Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. [2] [3] Viruses are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most numerous type of biological entity.
The human virome in five body habitats. (A) All of the viruses detected in the five body habitats . Each virus is represented by a colored bar and labeled on the y-axis on the right side. The relative height of the bar reflects the percentage of subjects sampled at each body site in whom the virus was detected.
To enter the cells, proteins on the surface of the virus interact with proteins of the cell. Attachment, or adsorption, occurs between the viral particle and the host cell membrane. A hole forms in the cell membrane, then the virus particle or its genetic contents are released into the host cell, where replication of the viral genome may commence.
Gamma phage, an example of virus particles (visualised by electron microscopy) Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses.It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, their interaction with host organism physiology and immunity, the diseases they ...
[1] However, the number of named viruses considerably exceeds the number of named virus species since, by contrast to the classification systems used elsewhere in biology, a virus "species" is a collective name for a group of (presumably related) viruses sharing certain common features (see below).
The human immunodeficiency virus is the virus that – when the infection is not treated – can cause AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). [174] Most virologists believe that HIV originated in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the 20th century, [ 175 ] [ 176 ] and over 70 million individuals have been infected by the virus.