The Virus Outbreak

The Virus Outbreak

" The single biggest threat to man's continues dominance is the virus." In the movie Outbreak a hemorrhagic virus took the lives of many people in a matter of days. This deadly virus was called the Motaba virus. Even though the virus is so small compared to us it is amazing how it has the power to take down so many things that are so much larger than it self. The virus, the way it spreads, and the effect it has, directly relates to the material we have covered this year in biology.

The Motaba virus is a hemorrhagic disease in which your internal organs in a sense melt away which causes extreme internal bleeding. In the movie Outbreak the virus strikes in a small village at first and it kills its victims within 2-3 days. It attacks the immune system and multiplies very rapidly and all of your cells become infected. The virus directly infects humans because of the similarity between monkey and human genetics. Monkey and Human genetics are very similar when looking at and comparing their DNA. The reason why the virus transmitted so quickly to humans without having to mutate was because the DNA of humans and monkeys are so similar that there didn't have to be any mutations in the virus for it to survive in the human body. There are two different strains of the virus, which mutate in the host, a monkey. The host is immune to the virus and has an antibody that can cure the virus. The host has both the first and second strain of the virus. Viruses have to mutate in order to survive in different environments so when the monkey got to Cedar Creek it had to adapt to the way things were there, which meant that the virus mutated also so it could survive.

Viruses and bacteria can be transmitted in a variety of ways. Viruses can be transmitted through direct contact which in other words means that it can be transferred through having physical contact with an individual whom is sick, it can be passed through sexual contact as well as coming in contact with infected blood.