How does a virus make a person sick?

Answer 1

In bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) a viral infection begins when a virus attaches to a specific chemical receptor on a host cell. The virus then inserts its nucleic acid into the cell. This nucleic acid may end up "taking over" the host cell and reproducing the virus. Most viruses that infect eukaryotes are engulfed by an endocytotic process. The eukaryotic cell "eats" the virus. Once inside the cell, there are two possible paths: a lysogenic infection, or a lytic infection.

Answer 2

A virus infects cells in the body, causing them to produce more viruses. This can lead to cell damage and inflammation, which triggers the body's immune response. The symptoms of sickness, such as fever, cough, and fatigue, are actually the body's way of fighting off the virus.

Answer 3

A virus enters a cell by first attaching to a specific structure on the cell's surface via a specific structure on the virus surface. Depending on the virus, either the entire virus enters the cell, or perhaps only the genetic material of the virus is injected into the cell. In either case however, the ultimate result of viral infection is the exposure of virus genetic material inside the entered cell. Then, the virus material essentially "takes over" the cell and nothing but viral parts are made, which assemble into many complete viruses. These viruses are mature and leave the cell either by a process called "budding" (just one or a few viruses at a time leave the cell) or by a process called lysis (the cellular membrane ruptures and releases all of the virus particles at once).

You get sick from viruses because of the immune response to the virus. When you get a cold, a virus has infected your body and is multiplying in your body by taking over the cells of your body to reproduce. In response to this your body activates the inflammatory process, which involves many processes like increased blood flow to the area of infection, extravasation of fluids(fluid from your blood leaves the blood stream to the sight of infection), white blood cells migrate to the site of infection, and fever.
To keep this simple, you can relate that alone to the symptoms of any cold or flu. If you think about a chest cold, you get the coughs and congestion in your lungs. In relation to the inflammatory process you have more fluid going to that area and more white blood cells in the area of infection. The phlegm you cough up when you have a chest cold is actually white blood cells that collected at the site and gathered up the dead virus cells, coughing is your bodies way of eliminating the virus cells.
It sounds funny, but the feeling sick part about being sick is actually caused by our own bodies and not from the virus itself. When people die from a virus, they are dying from their bodies immune response to the virus. Pneumonia, a build up of fluid in the lungs, cause of thousands of deaths a year is related to the cycle spoken about earlier. But, you can only imagine what would happen without the response of your body to the virus, it would continue to use your cells to reproduce until you reached a catastrophic failure due to cell damage.

Answer 4

It basically inhibits DNA from doing necessary things for optimal cell health, but it can be many factors. It hatches onto the nucleus and resides within the cell, dividing along with it. Then it basically overruns the cells and kills them.

Answer 5

Most viruses reproduce by using the cell's mechanisms for replicating nucleic acids and building proteins in a rapid uncontrolled manner until the cell fills completely with new viral particles. Eventually the cell is unable to contain them anymore and explodes, ejecting all these new viruses as well as the fragments of the cell which dies. These new viruses then infect other cells, with similar results.

However the vast majority of the symptoms of viral diseases are not caused by the viruses killing cells directly. When the immune system recognizes that an infection is in progress, it begins a 2 part attack:

1. B cells produce large quantities of antibodies to the virus. These cause free viruses to stick together in clumps, immobilizing them and macrophage cells eventually eat these clumps (which is relatively harmless).
2. T cells seek out and kill infected cells (trying to stop production of more viruses), and also trigger natural killer cells into action causing more cell death around the areas where the infection is active. This causes much more cell death than the viruses do themselves (which causes most of the damage and most of the symptoms).

Other actions of the immune system (e.g. fever, production of histamine) produce many of the other symptoms that viral diseases are well known for.

Answer 6

The virus makes people ill by reproducing in the body system. Viruses are known to mutate and increase rapidly which may make them immune to antibiotics.

Answer 7

by transporting their genetic material to the host cell causing a genetis mutation

Answer 8

They spread and attack your immune system.

Answer 9

A virus damages the cell in which it reproduces to make us feel ill.

Answer 10

Polio