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Old 03-11-2020, 09:32 AM
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Arrow Viruses: Still a mystery after all these years

VIRUSES: STILL A MYSTERY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
By: Lawrence K. Altman - The New York Times News - 09-28-86
Re: https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/28/m...ese-years.html

I was looking for the reasons why suddenly viruses occur & why? Maybe this will help you as it did me.

AFTER EXAMINING A PATIENT, THE DOC-tor makes a diagnosis, a common one: ''You've got a virus - the bug that's going around.'' The advice is just as familiar: ''Rest and drink plenty of liquids. You'll feel like yourself in no time.''

It may seem as if doctors are quick to diagnose all patients with similar, nonspecific symptoms as having a virus, or ''a bug.'' For good reason. Many viral illnesses start the same way, with muscle aches, fever and fatigue. Most bugs disappear in a week to 10 days with no lasting damage.

Calling a virus ''the bug that's going around,'' however, is an oversimplification. Most common viral illnesses can be caused by any one of hundreds of viruses that may be circulating through a community. These viruses spread in various ways: some respiratory bugs are dispersed as droplets in sneezes; other viruses are spread through contaminated food or water, a common cause of diarrhea and stomach upsets.

If your wife had a cold last week, your child caught one two days ago and you're sneezing today, it is possible that each of you was infected by the same virus. But a specific diagnosis would require extensive laboratory testing, and even then a conclusive finding would be difficult because many viruses cannot be isolated for identification.

For this reason, and others, viruses are among the most perplexing challenges facing medical researchers. The two 2:83,4:83>best-known viral illnesses are the common cold and influenza, but viruses also cause herpes, conjunctivitis, measles, smallpox, polio, AIDS and, research suggests, cancer of the cervix and a rare form of leukemia .

The connection between viruses and disease is one of the most active areas of medical research.

These are among the questions yet to be answered:

* Why are some people susceptible to certain viruses and others are not?

* Why do viruses affect people in varying degrees of severity?

* Why do some viruses disappear and others lie dormant in the body then flare up years later?

Why one person catches a ''bug'' and another does not -susceptibility - is affected in part by age, general health and, perhaps, in ways not fully understood, by poor nutrition. To a physician, susceptibility refers to lack of antibodies - the proteins that the body forms to fight off infectious agents. The body forms such antibodies after previous exposure to the bug, either from past infection or immunizations. Living conditions are also a factor; proximity to others increases the likelihood of contracting some diseases.The same virus can infect people with varying severity. No one knows why one person becomes extremely ill from a virus that causes only a mild attack in another.

There is even confusion about colds and flu. Colds come on gradually, with nasal congestion, malaise and sneezes. Influenza hits suddenly, with fever and muscle aches followed by respiratory symptoms. The flu (influenza) is a specific viral illness, although the term is often used to describe flu-like symptoms caused by bacteria or fungi, which, unlike most viruses, can be treated with antibiotics. Some viral infections can also be complicated by a secondary bacterial infection.

What is known about viral illnesses is that they are caused by a microbe that is both infectious (capable of invading and multiplying in the body) and communicable (capable of causing illness by itself or through one of its toxic products). But this does not necessarily mean that the microbe is contagious (spread by person-to-person contact). There are at least 300 known viruses, members of the 17 ''families'' that infect humans. As many as 200 human viruses cause the common cold alone. Many others can cause the flu. An additional 40 virus families affect plants and animals.

Doctors can recognize some viruses by the characteristic evolutionary patterns of their symptoms. Measles, for example, is not the only ailment to cause a fever, sniffles, a cough and red eyes. Nor is it the only illness to cause a rash. But the measles rash is unique; it first appears in the mouth as tiny red spots with white centers known as Koplik spots, named for the physician who first described them. The spots next emerge as blotches on the face and then on the body. The rash usually breaks out about three days after the fever and respiratory symptoms. By putting together the symptoms and their sequence, the physician can make a diagnosis.

Most viruses begin with the same general symptoms; some then go on to cause specific syndromes that are classified according to the organ that comes under greatest attack. Polio, for example, is caused by any of three viruses that usually enter the body through the intestinal tract. In only a small percentage of such infections does the virus travel through the blood from the intestine to the spinal cord to cause paralysis.

Although most antibiotics are ineffective against viruses, a few new drugs have been successful in specific cases. The Food and Drug Administration, for example, recently approved a drug called ribavirin for use in hospitals to treat respiratory syncytial virus infection, which tends to attack infants and young children.

HE GOOD NEWS IS that many viral ailments, like measles, mumps, polio, hepatitis B, rubella and rabies, can be prevented by immunizations. (There are other vaccines to prevent bacterial diseases like diphtheria, whooping cough and pneumococcal pneumonia.) Influenza, too, can be prevented with immunizations. Now, at the outset of the flu season, is when the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta recommends vaccinations for high-risk people - those over 65 and those suffering from chronic illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control, vaccination of those who are in this category ''is the single most important influenza-control measure.''

The first influenza vaccines were developed in the 1940's, after the isolation of the two main types of influenza: A in 1933 and B in 1940. (Influenza Type A is more likely to result in complications.) The modern versions of flu vaccines are derived from non-living, highly purified viruses of the specific types of influenza that have been circulating most recently.

For this winter, epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control recommend two flu shots: a basic one to protect against three strains of influenza A and B, and another to protect against a new variant. This new strain has caused outbreaks in several Asian countries and was detected too late to be included in the preparation of the basic vaccine.

A remarkable characteristic of the influenza virus is its ability to change antigens every so often, thus outwitting the ability of the human immune system to produce antibodies. For this reason, humans may suffer repeated attacks.

F DOCTORS TOOK specimens from all patients with infections and sent them to laboratories for identification, technicians would be overwhelmed. Even if laboratories could cope with such a workload, virologists still might not be able to identify the bug. One reason is that viruses cannot be isolated from all samples. Another is that scientists have not developed the techniques to identify the many viruses that are believed to be the cause of several ailments.

Occasionally, however, laboratory testing pays off. In 1975, after their children had suffered a series of similar symptoms - rash, body aches and fever - several mothers in Lyme, Conn., insisted that doctors investigate. They discovered it was a form of arthritis that was caused by ticks and is potentially curable by antibiotics. The bug was named Lyme disease and is now known to occur throughout the world.

Diseases are sometimes not identified until a dramatic outbreak makes detection possible. Before the summer of 1976, many cases of pneumonia were assumed to be caused by viruses. But that summer, members of an American Legion group attending a convention in Philadelphia contracted a mysterious strain of pneumonia. After studying the group, doctors were able to identify the ailment, now called Legionnaire's disease, as a bacterial infection. Doctors now know that 10 percent of cases previously called viral pneumonia were Legionnaire's disease.

Scientists first identified viruses in the late 1800's, when they found that some microorganisms passed through tiny filters that successfully screened out bacteria. One of the first such agents, found in 1902, was the virus that caused foot-and-mouth disease.

It was not until this century, with the invention of the electron microscope, that viruses could be seen. But most detection became possible when techniques were developed to grow viruses in the laboratory. The earliest attempts involved plants and animals with limited results. Greater success came in the early 1930's, when scientists discovered more fertile mediums for growing viruses - mice and eggs. Another breakthrough occured in the late 1940's, when scientists learned that viruses could be grown in cells in test tubes, a step that allowed a wider range of experimentation.

When health officials began keeping track of vital statistics a few centuries ago, they saw that certain ailments strike more often during one season than another. Those observations have been recorded more extensively in recent years with expanded medical surveillance. So it is now known, for instance, that influenza strikes most frequently in the cooler months - from October through April in the Northern Hemisphere and from May through September in the Southern Hemisphere.

Why should one virus appear seasonally and another have no discernible pattern? Scientists know of no changes that occur in viruses to account for seasonal patterns. Thus they seek such answers in environmental factors and in the natural habitats -called reservoirs - of viruses. Rabies, for example, is a disease of animals that affects humans only through animal bites. Thus, many cases of rabies can be traced to increased outdoor exposure during the spring, summer and fall. Doctors know that only humans are susceptible to polio and measles, but have not identified the reservoir for most other viruses.

Virologists have yet to discover where viruses hide between outbreaks. The reservoir for human influenza infections, for example, is man. But some virologists suspect that new strains develop and lie dormant in pigs, horses and birds.

OCTORS DO NOT know why a bug goes around when it does, or what causes an outbreak of viral illness at the time it strikes. Another unanswered question is why some viruses leave without a trace, while others remain dormant and then flare up years later, like chicken pox, which can recur as shingles, a painful nerve inflammation.

With modern techniques, studies have shown that many viruses can be regularly found in healthy people, called carriers. Some viruses may attack just one or two people sporadically, or they may sweep through the community. Why a virus will attack just a few people or suddenly explode to cause an epidemic is another mystery.

Doctors have eradicated only one viral disease -smallpox - and the prospect of achieving similar success with others is limited. Scientists have developed vaccines for previously unpreventable infections. Advances have been and no doubt will continue to be made in identifying and treating the many illnesses that exist. But chances are, no matter what progress medical science will bring, there will always be a bug going around.

About this writer: Lawrence K. Altman, M.D., covers medicine for The New York Times.

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Personal note: This was written in 1986 so that's 34 years ago - what we need is an updated argument that we know more today then back then? I can't find anything current on how we identify new viruses today then we did back then. I'm sure their are more current blood test procedures but how do they know what to look for? How do they establish the program by which a cure is possible and when its too late to help those who've come down with this virus? I've read mutations are constant on our planet and that the environment is also a factor that helps new virus bugs to mutate into something much more deadly and therefore much more difficult to cure. We know why older folks usually take the hardest hits because our immune system has degraded as we age. If we would apply as much detail into human health programs as we do space technology we may be able to save many more lives and prevent these bugs from doing so much damage to societies?

Just my thoughts - Boats
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Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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