MICROBES, BACTERIA AND VIRUSES: WHAT DIFFERENCES?
We qualify as microbes, a whole series of infectious agents or not. In this family, we can find bacteria, viruses, fungi and a multitude of living microorganisms.
If we were to zoom inside this family and study its members, we would find the famous bacteria!
A bacterium is a cell without a nucleus, about 50x thinner than a hair.
Often represented in the form of sticks, some are harmful and others beneficial to humans or even essential.
You should know that the human being is made up of bacteria, much more than living cells.
There are an estimated 500 different bacterial species in the human body, or 100,000 billion!
These living micro-organisms endowed with genetic material reproduce by division and can proliferate, autonomously, on a wide variety of surfaces such as:
- a touch screen,
- a counter,
- a table,
- a subway bar,
- a door handle,
- etc
The bacterium is responsible for:
- to fish
- Cholera
- Tuberculosis
- angina
However, although they belong to the same "family" of microbes, a bacterium should not be confused with a virus.
Indeed, the virus, from the Latin “poison”, is a protein capsule protecting a strand of genetic material coding for itself and its capsule.
20x smaller than a bacterium (which is already 50x smaller than a hair), the virus needs a living host to multiply.
It must enter a host cell and interfere with its replication functions.
The virus causes:
- influenza
- and AIDS
- smallpox
A virus is transmitted by the so-called “airborne” route when, for example, an infected person coughs or sneezes near another. It is then that part of the virus is expelled from the body into the ambient air and reaches that of the nearest person.
It is estimated that approximately 100,000 bacteria or viruses are expelled with each sneeze, which can be sent up to 9m away and remain active for 45min in the air.
However, it is also transmitted by water or food, by direct contact between people or even indirect contact, that is to say by means of an object such as a touch screen of a place. public (DAB for example) or even a banister.
Once the virus has made its way into a new organism, it tries by all means to find a refuge, a cell. It is at this moment that the virus releases its genetic material allowing it to replicate.
