Any organism or particle that can get inside of you and make you sick is an infectious agent.

Are Viruses Alive? What makes something alive? When you were learning about bacteria, you read that bacteria reproduce, use energy, and grow. Viruses can also reproduce, use energy, and grow.

But viruses do not grow, respond, eat, or reproduce (on their own. What…..?). Viruses appear to be neither living nor non- living.

A virus is a piece of hereditary material covered by protein that infects and reproduces only inside a living cell.

Viruses are classified by their shape, the kind of hereditary material they have, the kind of organism they infect, and their method of reproduction. Viruses are often named for the diseases they cause or the organ or tissue they infect.

Viral Reproduction A virus has to be inside a living cell to reproduce. The cell in which a virus reproduces is called a host cell. The virus injects its genetic material into the host cell or enters the host cell.

Once inside a host cell, the virus can act in two different ways. It can either be active or it can become latent and be an inactive part of the cell for a while. When active, the virus causes the host cell to make new viruses which destroy the host cell.

Active

There is no cure for many viral infections. Because of the number of viruses, and the ways they can change over time, it is difficult to treat viral infections. Treatment for illnesses caused by viruses depends on the illness. Some illnesses, like the common cold and the flu, are hard to treat and impossible to cure.

You might take some cold medicine to “feel better”, but it does not make you better. It can only treat the symptoms. You have to wait for the virus to die out on its own. For a cold, it usually takes about 7 days.

A lot of illnesses caused by viruses are like that. Viruses are very hard to remove from the body. For most viral illnesses you have to wait for the virus to die out on its own.

However, by learning how viruses are spread, you can prevent other people from getting sick.