Coronaviruses belong to a family known as Coronaviridae, and under an electron microscope, they look like spiked rings. They're named for these spikes, which form a halo or "crown" (corona is Latin for crown) around their viral envelope.
Coronaviruses contain a single strand of RNA (as opposed to DNA, which is double-stranded) within the envelope and, like a virus, can't reproduce without getting inside living cells and hijacking their machinery. The spikes on the viral envelope help coronaviruses bind to cells, which gives them away in, like blasting a door open with C4. Once inside, they turn the cell into a virus factory the RNA and some enzymes use the cell's molecular machinery to produce more viruses, which are then shipped out of the cell to infect other cells. Thus, the cycle starts anew.
Typically, these types of viruses are found in animals ranging from livestock and household pets to wildlife such as bats. Some are responsible for the disease, like the common cold. When they make the jump to humans, they can cause fever, respiratory illness and inflammation in the lungs. In immunocompromised individuals, such as the elderly or those with HIV-AIDS, such viruses can cause severe respiratory illness, resulting in pneumonia and even death.
Extremely pathogenic coronaviruses were behind the diseases SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) in the last two decades. These viruses were easily transmitted from human to human but were suspected to have passed through different animal intermediaries: SARS was traced to civet cats and MERS to dromedary camels. SARS, which showed up in the early 2000s, infected more than 8,000 people and resulted in nearly 800 deaths. MERS, which appeared in the early 2010s, infected almost 2,500 people and led to more than 850 deaths.
0 Comments