It´s just a virus …
The good, the bad and the ugly – and the really nasty ones.
If you are reading this you have already survived numerous viruses, measles, the ordinary flu, chickenpox etc. and in your early childhood you have probably got a few shots to protect you against a lot of other illnesses caused by viruses.
Depending on point of view, you are in such luck that hundreds of viruses live a, more or less, uneventful life within your body.
You don´t feel sick? Thank the dormant viruses who are keeping your immune system up to speed at no extra cost but shelter from the outside world where they would not survive.
Anders Fomsgård, a renown professor and virologist at the Danish “State Serum Institute” is giving a lecture on viruses, what they are, how they “live and breed”, how to live with them and without them.
Basically, our concerns are how easy a virus spreads; the R factor, and how serious in terms of death ratio.
Viruses are everywhere and cannot be avoided, but the more deadly can to some degree be contained and controlled. Thanks to international cooperation the effects of an epidemic can be limited, and virologist can trace how a virus travels, through a very distinct genetic mapping.
SARS, MERS and other fun stuff which may live dormant in an animal host – which has grown accustomed to this through ages – may suddenly jump to a new host … who is totally unprepared in terms of antibodies and this is just what happens.
With a lot of anecdotes from his professional career Dr. Fomsgård shares his vast knowledge in a language not too complicated to laymen.
If you are curious about viruses, Ebola, AIDS, Marburger, Malaria, Lassa Fever and all the more common ones like Hepatitis (ABC), this is the book for you.