ABSTRACT
In the recent times, we have often seen or heard the word virus throughout social media. However, very few individuals know that diseases such as influenza that afflicts us in winter, the epidemic encephalitis that afflicts us in summer, and poliomyelitis that often affects children’s limbs without mercy, are caused by viruses. In general, much attention has been focused on viruses not only as pathogens that cause various diseases but also as important tools to pursue answers regarding the essence of life at the molecular level. Therefore, viruses can be safely regarded as living organisms into which great achievements of modern science have been integrated. However, the existence of individuals apart from virologists who really understand what a virus is is extremely rare. In general, many people only have a vague understanding that viruses are a sort of infinitesimal microorganisms and are pathogens that cause various diseases. Although viruses are infinitesimal living things, they do not show any signs of life, irrespective of whether they are taken out of living bodies or put into test tubes containing an artificial culture medium. The aggregates of the particles are a chemical substance that is apparently not different from lumps of sugar. Although bacteria, which are low organisms, also breathe and ingest nutritive substances for reproduction, viruses neither breathe nor proliferate by themselves. However, once viruses have broken into living cells, they proliferate very quickly in large quantities. In other words, each virus particle has an amazing latent ability to replicate hundreds of identical particles. Once the virus particle, which looks similar to an inorganic substance, breaks inside a favorable cell, it immediately exerts its vitality to produce innumerable new identical virus particles in the cell at the rate of several particles in a minimum of 10 minutes to a maximum of several hours.
