Question

Describe the  Signs and symptoms, Causative agent, Mode of transmission and Prevention of Covid-19.

Answer 1

Covid 19 / Corona virus:

• This is an infectious respiratory disease in humans.
• It is also caused in birds and mammals.
• It was first identified during December, 2019 in Wuhan city of China.
• The initial symptoms can be developed from 4 to 14 days.
• The most common symptoms of this disease are fever, cough and shortness of breath.
• The WHO declared this as an outbreak of pandemic.
• It's spread ratio is very fast.
• We can prevent this by wearing a mask, washing hands, sanitizing and maintaining social distance.
• Covid 19 means 'CO' stands for Corona, 'VI' stands for Virus, and 'D' stands for disease.
• This virus was initially transmitted from birds to animals.
• The causative agent of Covid 19 is SARS- CoV-2.
• It's mode of transmission is that when an infected person sneezes, or coughs, or talks the droplets called aerosols carry the virus into the air from their mouth or nose.
• So it is called airborne transmission.
• The diagnosis of Covid 19 includes collection of samples from saliva, a throat swab or a nasal swab.
• Corona virus contains RNA as the genetic material, membrane protein, spike glycoprotein (which allows the virus to penetrate the cell), envelope protein (helps to assemble new viruses), nucleoprotein( allows the virus to camouflague its genetic material to the immune system.
• The process of infection includes adhesion of corona virus to a healthy cell which contains heparan sulfate proteoglycans, protease, ACE2 protein, fusion protein and cell membrane.
• The infected virus recognizes the cell and adheres to ACE2 protein and cut the spikes, fuses with fusion protein, finally the genetic material enters the cell.
• As a result the cell recognizes the viral RNA as its own and virus controls the cellular machinery and finally occurs the packaging of  new viruses.
• This repeats until the virus gets deactivated.

Corona virus:

• This is an infectious respiratory disease in humans.
• It is also caused in birds and mammals.