• Question: if you were to take away one virus from the world, what would it be?

    Asked by megzzb to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by danrumford.
    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi megzzb,
      I would probably say HIV. It causes a terrible disease for many people. It is also very difficult to treat and there is no cure. Infection with HIV leads to AIDS, about 33.3 million people have AIDS and about 1.8 million people die from it every year!
      Pam

    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi Megzzb, another great question.

      One virus: Well it’d have to be HIV because it kills so many people. Other ones i’d like to get rid of is Herpes Simplex virus (the one that causes cold sores) and Human papillomavirus (one that causes warts) because these two are very annoying and can take ages to treat! The flu virus would be another great one to get rid of as well as the virus that causes rabies…..or the common cold virus….oh there are too many!

      What one would you like to get rid of?

      Cat

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi Megzzb !

      Great question.. I first said HIV but the flu virus (which admittedly is a wider range of viruses) has the highest mortality. In 1918 there was a flu pandemic which affected nearly a third of the world population, killing nearly a hundred million people. Flu, or influenza, causing viruses are now commonly mentioned in the news as being likely to ‘change’ and ‘mutate’ to the extent that a serious epidemic of disease can occur..

      What do you think?

      If I also named a bacteria, I’d say the one which causes tuberculosis, which is mainly the bacteria ‘Mycobacterium tuberculosis’. Real nasty, and affects a huuuuge number of people.

      Daz

    • Photo: Holly Shelton

      Holly Shelton answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hiya Great question, I think I would probably get rid of Polio virus which actually scientists are very close to doing!! The reason is that polio can cause paralysis and lots of nasty complications which cause people to have quite hard lives. Scientists have rolled out a very effective vaccination programme for Polio over the past few years which is having a big effect on reducing global Polio burden. Other viruses that have been removed from the world include Smallpox which was a very nasty virus that caused horrible rashes and killed people. That was erradicated in 1979 through vaccination. This year it was announced that Rhinderpest a virus that infects cows and causes them to waste away meaning for some countries that depend on cows to provide the human population with meat (like Africa) this virus was a big problem in food production – but that is also now gone!

      Holly

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