• Question: what is the most heart breaking virus?

    Asked by x Miss Sugg x to Christie, Dan, David, Dawn, Sian on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Dawn Lau

      Dawn Lau answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      A couple of years ago, there was a computer virus called Heartbleed virus that was infecting a lot of people’s computers but I suspect that’s not what you’re asking about! 🙂

      In my opinion, the worst viral infection you can get is from the influenza virus. Most people think the flu will pass after a week in bed, but flu can actually be really serious for people such as children, the elderly, and pregnant women. The flu virus mutates incredibly rapidly and sometimes scientists can’t catch up with the natural evolution of the flu virus to make a vaccine against it.

      Some flu strains mutate so that they can be passed on from animals to humans. I remember when I was 7 years old in Hong Kong there was a massive outbreak of avian flu (called H5N1) that was passed on from chickens to humans. Because of this, all 1.5 million chickens in Hong Kong were killed to prevent spreading of the disease.

    • Photo: Sian Thomas

      Sian Thomas answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      At the moment Zika is in the news a lot! This could be pretty heartbreaking as it seems to have horrible effects on unborn babies and science is not entirely sure about spread. This is why there is advice for people who are pregnant or planning to start a family and are traveling to Brazil for the olympics.

      But AIDS is pretty devastating too. And a few years ago there was panic about SARS – a respiratory disease that seemed to spread really easily. And more recently Ebola devastated parts of West Africa.

      Viruses spread really easily – sometimes it is hard to work out how. In food we are still trying to work out how much winter vomiting bug is spread through food and how much through person to person contact – although this is not really heartbreaking (but you might think it is while you are suffering!).

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