DEFINITION:1 orig., venom, as of a snake 2 a) any of a kingdom (Virus) of prokaryotes, usually ultra microscopic, that consist of nucleic acid, either RNA or DNA, within a case of protein: they infect animals, plants, and bacteria and can reproduce only within living cells so that they are considered as being either living organisms or inert chemicals b) a disease caused by a virus 3 anything that corrupts or poisons the mind or character; evil or harmful influence 4 an unauthorized, disruptive set of instructions placed in a computer program, that leaves copies of itself in other programs and disks.

1981: US AIDS diagnosed. A new fatal, infectious disease was diagnosed in 1981. Called Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), it began appearing in major cities among homosexual men and intravenous drug users. Other high-risk groups were haemophiliacs and other recipients of blood or blood products, babies born of AIDS-infected women, bisexual men, and prostitutes and their customers. AIDS was soon recognized as a worldwide health emergency: a fatal disease with no known cure that quickly became an epidemic. It was especially widespread in Africa, the apparent land of its origin.

By 1983 the virus that causes the disease had been isolated. Some medicines, notably AZT (azidothymidine), slowed the disease’s progress for a few months or more; but the spread of AIDS continued relentlessly, with more than 3,000 new cases being reported each month by 1991.

The federal government had committed more than 1.6 billion dollars to research, while the homosexual community and other special interest groups sought more federal funding and greater assistance from the health insurance industry. Educational programs on safe sexual practices, such as the use of condoms, seemed the best means of slowing the epidemic. Meanwhile, more than 70,000 persons in the United States had died from AIDS by the end of the decade.

1981: WORLD AIDS identified. A strange, new, and deadly disease made its appearance in 1980. Physicians in such large cities as Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco noticed that homosexual men were dying from rare lung infections or from a cancer known as Kaposi’s sarcoma. By 1981 the disease was identified and given a name: AIDS, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

The virus that causes AIDS, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), was identified by Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris in research done during the years 1981-84. The results of Dr. Montagnier’s studies were released in 1984. Since its discovery, AIDS has become one of the world’s major health problems. Within certain populations it has become an epidemic: male homosexuals, haemophiliacs, and intravenous drug users in the United States, for example, and heterosexual men and women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many people were infected through blood transfusions before HIV screening was introduced. An individual infected with the virus may not show the symptoms of AIDS for several years, but the condition is eventually fatal.

The search for a successful vaccine was pursued in laboratories around the world, with no success by the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the disease continued to spread to different parts of the world. Already rife in the United States, Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa by the mid-1980s, it quickly spread to Central and East Asia. The disease also began to spread to larger portions of the heterosexual community throughout the world.

The composition of a virus is relatively simple, and its size is extremely small. It cannot even properly be called an organism because it is unable to carry on life processes outside a living cell of an animal, plant, or bacteria. Yet its method of entering and “enslaving” a living cell is so ingenious that the virus is humankind’s deadliest enemy and resists the most advanced efforts of modern science to eliminate it.

Millions of people throughout the world suffer each year from viral diseases such as polio, measles, chicken pox, mumps, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and the common cold. Viruses also produce such illnesses as foot-and-mouth disease in livestock, distemper in dogs, panleukopenia in cats, and hog cholera. The viruses that infect bacteria are called bacteriophages.

Structure and Composition

Nucleic acid, any of substances comprising genetic material of living cells; divided into two classes: RNA (ribonucleic acid) and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid); directs protein synthesis and is vehicle for transmission of genetic information from parent to offspring.

Viruses are exceedingly small; they range in size from about 0.02 to 0.25 micron in diameter (1 micron = 0.000039 inch). By contrast, the smallest bacteria are about 0.4 micron in size. As observed with an electron microscope, some viruses are rod-shaped, others are roughly spherical, and still others have complex shapes consisting of a multi sided “head” and a cylindrical “tail.” A virus consists of a core of nucleic acid surrounded by a protein coat called a capsid; some viruses also have an outer envelope composed of fatty materials and proteins. The nucleic-acid core is the essential part of the virus it carries the virus’s genes. The core consists of either deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA), substances that are essential to the transmission of hereditary information. The protein capsid protects the nucleic acid and may contain molecules that enable the virus to enter the host cell that is, the living cell infected by the virus.

Cycle and Patterns of Infection

Outside of a living cell, a virus is a dormant particle. It exhibits none of the characteristics generally associated with life namely, reproduction and metabolic processes such as growth and assimilation of food. Unlike bacteria and other micro-organisms, viruses remain dormant in body fluids. Thus, great numbers of viruses may be present in a body and yet not produce a disease because they have not invaded the body’s cells. Once inside a host cell, however, the virus becomes an active entity capable of taking over the infected cell’s metabolic machinery. The cellular metabolism becomes so altered that it helps to produce thousands of new viruses.

The virus’s developmental cycle begins when it succeeds in introducing its nucleic acid, and in some cases its protein coat, into a host cell. Bacteriophages attach to the surface of the bacterium and then penetrate the rigid cell wall, transmitting the viral nucleic acid into the host. Animal viruses enter host cells by a process called endocytosis. Plant viruses enter through wounds in the cell’s outer coverings through abrasions made by wind, for example, or through punctures made by insects.

Virion, an entire virus particle the extracellular infective form of a virus consisting of an outer protein shell (capsid) and an inner core of nucleic acid (either ribonucleic or deoxyribonucleic acid); in some, the capsid further enveloped by a fatty membrane.

Once inside the host cell, the virus’s genes usually direct the cell’s production of new viral protein and nucleic acid. These components are then assembled into new, complete, infective virus particles called virions, which are then discharged from the host cell to infect other cells.

In the case of bacteriophages, the new virions are usually released by bursting the host cell a process called lysing, which kills the cell. Sometimes, however, bacteriophages form a stable association with the host cell. The virus’s genes are incorporated into the host cell’s genes, replicate as the cell’s genes replicate, and when the cell divides, the viral genes are passed on to the two new cells.

In such cases no virions are produced, and the infecting virus seems to disappear. Its genes, however, are being passed on to each new generation of cells that stem from the original host cell. These cells remain healthy and continue to grow unless, as happens occasionally, something triggers the latent viral genes to become active. When this happens, the normal cycle of viral infection results: the viral genes direct viral replication, the host cell bursts, and the new virions are released. This pattern of infection is called lysogeny.

Closely related to lysogeny is the process known as transduction, whereby a virus carries bacterial genes from one host to another. This transduction process occurs when genes from the original host become incorporated into a virion that subsequently infects another bacterium.

Viral infections of plant and animal cells resemble those of bacterial cells in many ways. The release of new virions from plant and animal cells does not, however, always involve the bursting of the host cell as it does in bacteria. Particularly among animal viruses, the new virions may be released by budding off from the cell membrane, a process that does not necessarily kill the host cell.

In general, a viral infection produces one of four effects in a plant or animal cell: in apparent effect, in which the virus remains dormant in the host cell; cytopathic effect, in which the cell dies; hyperplastic effect, in which the cell is stimulated to divide before its death; and cell transformation, in which the cell is stimulated to divide, take on abnormal growth patterns, and become cancerous.

Cold sore (or fever blister, or Herpes simplex), a virus infection of the borders of the mouth, lips and nose, or genitals; marked by watery blisters; may be due to illness, emotional upset, or other stress.

Viral infections in animals can be localized or can spread to various parts of the body. Some animal viruses produce latent infections: the virus remains dormant much of the time but becomes active periodically. This is the case with the herpes simplex viruses that cause cold sores.

Natural Defences, Immunization, Treatment

Fever, a condition in which the body temperature rises above normal.

Animals have a number of natural defences that may be triggered by a viral infection. Fever is a general response; many viruses are inactivated at temperatures just slightly above the host’s normal body temperature. Another general response of infected animal cells is the secretion of a protein called interferon. Interferon inhibits the reproduction of viruses in non infected cells.

Fever and interferon production are general responses to infection by any virus. In addition, humans and other vertebrates can mount an immunological attack against a specific virus. The immune system produces antibodies and sensitized cells that are tailor-made to neutralize the infecting virus. These immune defenders circulate through the body long after the virus has been neutralized, thereby providing long-term protection against reinfection by that virus.

Such long-term immunity is the basis for active immunization against viral diseases. A weakened or inactivated strain of an infectious virus is introduced into the body. This virus does not provoke an active disease state, but it does stimulate the production of immune cells and antibodies, which then protect against subsequent infection by the virulent form of the virus.

Active immunizations are routine for such viral diseases as measles, mumps, poliomyelitis, and rubella. In contrast, passive immunization is the injection of antibodies from the serum of an individual who has already been exposed to the virus. Passive immunization is used to give short-term protection to individuals who have been exposed to such viral diseases as measles and hepatitis. It is useful only if provided soon after exposure, before the virus has become widely disseminated in the body.

The treatment of an established viral infection usually is restricted to relieving specific symptoms. There are few drugs that can be used to combat a virus directly. The reason for this is that viruses use the machinery of living cells for reproduction. Consequently, drugs that inhibit viral development also inhibit the functions of the host cell. Nonetheless, a small number of antiviral drugs are available for specific infections.

The most successful controls over viral diseases are epidemiological. For example, large-scale active immunization programs can break the chain of transmission of a viral disease. Worldwide immunization is credited with the eradication of smallpox, once one of the most feared viral diseases. Because many viruses are carried from host to host by insects or contaminated food, insect control and hygienic food handling can help eliminate a virus from specific populations.

History of Virus Research

Historic descriptions of viral diseases date back as far as the 10th century BC. The concept of the virus, however, was not established until the last decade of the 19th century, when several researchers obtained evidence that agents far smaller than bacteria were capable of causing infectious diseases.

Mosaic disease, highly infectious virus disease affecting many plants including cucumber, potato, tomato, bean, and turnip; dwarfs growth and mottles leaves.

The existence of viruses was finally proved when bacteriophages were discovered by independent researchers in 1915 and 1917. The question of whether viruses are actually micro-organisms (similar to very tiny bacteria) was resolved in 1935, when the virus responsible for causing mosaic disease in tobacco was isolated and crystallized; the fact that it could be crystallized proved that the virus was not a cellular organism.

Bacteriophages are a valuable research tool for molecular biologists. Studies of bacteriophages have helped to illuminate such basic biological processes as genetic recombination, nucleic-acid replication, and protein synthesis.

Heart Rhythm and Pacemakers

A node of special cells in the heart controls its rhythm by regularly producing energizing electrical signals. Sometimes, abnormal signals cause extra heart beats, or tachycardia.

At other times, especially in older persons, the signals might not be conducted too well through the heart, thus slowing it. When a person’s heart rate drops below 40 beats a minute, he usually feels faint and cannot function well. In that case, he often can be fitted with an artificially powered heart pacemaker.

Diagnosis and Treatment of Heart Trouble

A doctor carefully questions and examines anyone suspected of heart trouble for evidence of pain, fatigue, abnormal heartbeat, and so on. He listens to the heart and lungs with a stethoscope. Sometimes, a heart murmur, a rushing noise heard through the stethoscope, provides a clue to a heart problem. A faint murmur can be normal, but a loud one usually indicates a diseased heart valve or other trouble. A chest X ray is usually taken to get a picture of the heart and lungs. An electrocardiogram reveals the electrical activity of a patient’s heart.

A doctor can also rely on cardiac catheterization and angiography to diagnose heart disease. Cardiac catheterization involves slipping a catheter, a long tube, through veins into the heart to learn such things as how much blood the heart is pumping, whether its valves are damaged, and whether it is contracting as it should. Angiography involves injecting dye through a catheter into the heart so that subsequent X rays will reveal the internal anatomy of the heart and the blood flow through it.

Rheumatic fever, inflammatory disease probably caused by bacterial infection; damages connective tissue of the heart and joints.

Rheumatic Heart Disease

Rheumatic heart disease has both an acute form and a chronic form. The acute form, rheumatic fever, inflames joints and heart muscle. The joints always recover, but if the condition becomes chronic the heart valves may eventually become scarred. Rheumatic fever most often affects the mitral, or bicuspid, valve of the heart and produces a blockage called mitral stenosis.

Rheumatic fever is a health problem in many of the world’s developing nations. It is caused by an unusual body response to an infectious sore throat sparked by the bacterium beta haemolytic streptococcus. Uniquely, the bacterial cell wall and the human heart muscle have a protein in common. A person with a “strep” throat develops antibodies against the bacterial protein. However, the antibodies may also attack that person’s own heart muscle, damaging it over the years. Penicillin and other antibiotics treat strep throat and can prevent heart damage. In severe cases after many years, however, surgery might be needed to repair or even replace a damaged heart valve.

Hypertensive Heart Disease

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a fairly common disorder. Ordinarily, the heart creates sufficient pressure to send blood throughout the body. However, sometimes resistance to blood flow from the arteries is high and the blood pressure rises above normal. Because the heart must then work harder to maintain the higher pressure, it enlarges.

Blood pressure is maintained by means of a complex interaction between the heart, the nervous system, and a kidney hormone called renin. Some persons with hypertension have too much renin in their blood. High blood pressure increases the wear and tear on blood vessels. It also can cause heart failure, strokes, and kidney disorders. When discovered soon enough, it can be treated with drugs.

Other Kinds of Heart Disease

Sometimes the heart does not develop properly and a child can be born with a serious congenital heart disease. Heart valves might be too narrow or missing altogether, or the septum, a wall separating the heart chambers, might be incomplete. As a result, a hole exists between the heart chambers. Such congenital heart diseases can be discovered by means of cardiac catheterization and angiography and often can be corrected by a heart surgeon.

Some substances are dangerous to the heart. For example, diphtheria bacteria produce a toxin that damages the heart. Excessive alcohol drinking weakens and enlarges the heart. Persons with heart murmurs caused by faulty valves or congenital heart disease are susceptible to endocarditis, a bacterial infection of the inner lining of the heart. Also, certain viruses can cause myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, inflammation of the outer lining of the heart.

Blood Vessel Disorders

Thrombus, blood clot that remains attached to place of origin in blood vessel.

Atherosclerosis, the thickening and hardening of arterial walls, may occur in many arteries. Cholesterol and other fats that form in the process obstruct the affected arteries and, at times, produce a thrombus, or clot, in them. Sometimes, these clots break away, especially from the heart, and embolize, or travel to some other part of the circulatory system. There, they can block a blood vessel and keep oxygen away from a vital body part. Embolism in the brain, for example, can cause a stroke.

Aneurysm, bulging and thinning of some point in the wall of a blood vessel (usually an artery) or of the heart because of arteriosclerosis (“hardening of the arteries”), embolism, infection, or physical injury; element common to all true aneurysms is injury to the media; after the aneurysm has developed it tends to grow, with danger that the vessel wall will rupture; treatment of aneurysm involves surgical removal of the diseased section of artery and its replacement with a plastic graft.

Aneurysm occurs when the walls of a large artery, especially the aorta, become weak and balloon out. Atherosclerosis can cause an aneurysm. So can syphilis. The venereal disease can also make the aortic valve leak.

Varicose veins, bulging veins in the leg, develop when the walls of the veins weaken. The condition may be inherited or may stem from phlebitis, an inflammation of the veins. Phlebitis may trigger clots in the veins, which sometimes break away, travel to the lungs, and form a pulmonary embolus. Drugs used to prolong clotting time often correct clotting disorder.

CANCER AND OTHER GROWTH DISORDERS

Cancer the collective name for any of the dangerous tumours, or growths, that can arise in the body is the second ranking cause of death in the United States and Canada. It claims more than 460,000 lives each year in the United States; some 87,000 each year in Canada. There are more than 100 different kinds of cancer.

Cancer is characterized by rampant, abnormal cell growth. If this occurs within a vital organ or tissue, normal function will be impaired or halted, with possibly fatal results. Cancer called sarcoma can arise in muscle, bone, connective tissue, blood vessels, and fatty tissue.

Cancer called carcinoma can arise in skin cells and in cells that line the body’s cavities and organs. Abnormal proliferation of white blood cells is called leukaemia An aberrant tumour in the body’s lymphatic tissue is a lymphoma. Cancer can strike many parts of the body. Some cancerous tumours are fast growing; they may double their size within a month or so. Others are slow growing and may not spread for many months or even years.

The Cancer Process

Tumours, or neoplasms, are purposeless bulges of excessive cell growth in tissue. If they are local and harmless, they are benign. If they can spread to other tissues and cause the body harm, they are malignant. Malignant tumours are cancerous.

Cell multiplication goes on normally in the human body for replacement of dead cells, but in cancer the multiplication goes somehow awry. Local malignant tumours often can be removed by surgery, thus ending the problem. However, if the cancer cells are not destroyed by surgery or other means, they may metastasise, or leave the local site and spread to other parts of the body. When they do metastasise, the entire body can succumb to the disease.

Cancer is believed to begin with one wildly multiplying cell in a given tissue. The process so resembles the action of cells in an embryo as they divide and shape the body that scientists think that cancer is tied in with the basic chemistry of the cell. After the embryonic cells have performed their tasks, certain chemical repressors lock up portions of DNA in genes in the cell nucleus.

These repressed pieces of DNA no longer trigger the biochemical reactions associated with rapid embryonic cell division. Thus, the seeds of cancer might be in everyone’s body. Then, at some time in the future, an event such as virus infection, radiation intake, inhalation of a carcinogen, or cancer-causing chemical, or an imbalance of hormones might free the genes and permit a mature body cell to revert back to an embryonic like cell. One theory even holds that the gene-bearing chromosomes of normal cells have certain sections capable of making virus like particles. These particles could then infect neighbouring cells and make them produce more particles, until many cells were proliferating wildly.

Tumour angiogenesis factor (TAF), substance that causes rapid growth of tiny blood vessels.

Cancer cells produce antigens against which the body reacts with antibodies. Small pockets of cancer cells, called silent cancers, might constantly be springing up in a person’s body, only to be destroyed by the body’s immunity system before they could do any harm. If the antibodies are ineffective, however, the cell mass grows to the size of a pinhead. Unless it gets enough blood, the pinhead mass will not get bigger. However, such tumours can give off a substance called tumour angiogenesis factor, which “fertilizes” rapid growth of tiny blood vessels into the tumour Then, it starts growing again because it has an ample supply of food from the blood. When it grows large enough to interfere with a vital body activity, the sufferer dies.

Treatment of Cancer

Cutting out the cancerous tissue through surgery is probably the most effective way of fighting cancer, as long as it has not had a chance to spread. Radiation treatment using radioactive cobalt or radium salts is another method of inhibiting the spread of cancer. Certain anticancer drugs hinder the growth of cancer cells and prevent their spread.

CANCER SIGNS

There are seven warning signs of cancer. If you notice any of these symptoms be sure to call them to the attention of a physician:

1. A sore that does not heal.

2. A lump or thickening anywhere in the body.

3. Nagging hoarseness or cough.

4. Unusual bleeding or discharge.

5. Persistent indigestion or difficulty in swallowing.

6. A change in bowel or bladder habits.

7. A change in a wart or a mole.

Early detection of cancer through annual physical examinations has been effective in reducing cancer death rates. In its early stages, cancer can often be stopped before it spreads.

Surgery performed early enough can remedy most women suffering from cancer of the uterus or cancer of the ovaries. A simple test, called the Pap smear, given by a physician at regular intervals can indicate the presence of precancerous uterine tissue before it becomes dangerous.

Lung cancer, which is often linked with cigarette smoking, affects males more than any other type of cancer; and it is spreading rapidly among female smokers as well. The next most frequent type among males is prostate cancer. Cancer of the breast is the leading type of cancer among females. Cancer of the colon/rectum ranks second. A woman can frequently discover breast cancer herself before it becomes serious by regular examination of her breasts for lumps.