Since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 has affected millions of people around the globe. It’s an RNA virus that causes fever, cough, and death. Like other respiratory viruses, COVID-19 spreads quickly by particles that come out of your mouth when you sneeze, breathe, and cough.
One similar virus is Yellow Fever. It’s also an RNA virus that transmits by mosquito bites. Depending on the person’s body, one might react differently from another. Most people either have no symptoms or mild symptoms that can be recovered in a week. However, people with weak immune systems might develop severe symptoms such as high fever, chills, and body aches. In addition, the fatality rate for people to develop severe symptoms is between 30%-60%.
Now you might wonder, what makes those viruses similar? Aside from them being RNA viruses, they also have similarities in symptoms. Still, most importantly, those two viruses both do something that I mentioned in my last post: Endocytosis. When these viruses enter our body, they use their special protein receptors to trick our cells into thinking it’s some proteins that benefit our body. Once viruses enter the body, using receptor-mediated cytosis, it uses its own protein and DNA to replicate themselves, including those false proteins. One thing to note is that those viruses can’t replicate by themselves. They would need to rely on living cells to multiply. Once the viruses replicate themselves, they carry on with exocytosis to exit the infected cell and infect more cells in our body.
Last but not least, Yellow Fever and COVID-19 can’t be completely cured since the viruses mutate so quickly that we don’t have enough time to find what can erase those viruses completely. However, as long as we receive vaccines and take care of our health, those viruses shouldn’t worry us too much.
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