COVID-19 infection: Changes inside the body, a scientific analysis.

 SARS CoV-2 has been gripping since 2019, killing millions around the globe. The dynamics of SARS CoV-2 are looked at closely by scientists around the world. This matter must go deep in every individual's mind to stop the spread of this deadly disease. The Biotech People have made efforts to simplify the concept and brought it to you. 

This is SARS CoV-2. It belongs to the family of coronaviruses. Corona refers to CROWN SHAPE. SARS CoV-2 can cause COVID-19, a communicable viral infection. COVID-19 affects your throat and lungs.  

What actually happens in your body when you contract the coronavirus? 

What exactly causes your body to develop pneumonia? And how would a vaccine work? 

The coronavirus must infect living cells to reproduce. Let's have a closer look. Coronaviruses are RNA viruses. This RNA is the genetic material of the virus. The genetic material contains the information required for its replication. A protein shell provides a hard protective enclosure for the genetic material. As the virus travels between the people it infects the protein shell helps it to protect itself. An outer envelope allows the virus to infect cells by merging with the cell's outer membrane. Projecting from the envelope are spikes of protein molecules. The spike protein helps the virus to get into the body of the host. When an infected person talks, coughs or sneezes, tiny droplets gets released. These droplets land on the nostrils of a healthy person. Then the viruses move into the lungs and infect him/her. Once inside your body, the virus comes into contact with cells in your throat, nose or lungs.

One spike on the virus inserts into a receptor molecule on your healthy cell membrane like a key in a lock. 

This action allows the virus to get inside your cell. A typical flu virus would travel inside a sack made from your cell membrane to your cell’s nucleus. The nucleus is where your cell houses all its genetic material. The coronavirus, on the other hand, doesn’t need to enter the host cell nucleus. It can directly access parts of the host cell, called Ribosomes. Ribosomes use genetic information from the virus to make viral proteins, such as the spikes on the virus’ surface. A packaging structure in your cell then carries the spikes in vesicles, which merge with your cell's outer layer, the cell membrane. All the parts needed to create a new virus gather just beneath your cell's membrane. Then a new virus begins to bud off from the cell's membrane.

 For this, we’ll have to look into your lungs. Each lung has separate sections, called lobes. Normally, as you breathe, air moves freely through your trachea or windpipe, then through large tubes, called bronchi, and then through smaller tubes, called bronchioles. And finally into tiny sacs, called alveoli. 

Your airways and alveoli are flexible and springy. When you breathe in, each air sac inflates like a small balloon. And when you exhale, the sacs deflate. Small blood vessels, called capillaries, surround your alveoli. Oxygen from the air you breathe passes into your capillaries. Carbon dioxide from your body passes out of your capillaries into your alveoli so that your lungs can get rid of it when you exhale. Your airways catch most germs in the mucus that lines your trachea, bronchi, and bronchioles. In a healthy body, hair-like cilia lining the tubes constantly push the mucus and germs out of your airways, where you may expel them by coughing.

 Normally, cells of your immune system attack viruses and germs that make it past your mucus and cilia and enter your alveoli. But, if your immune system is weak, like in the case of coronavirus infection, then the virus can overwhelm your immune cells and your bronchioles. Furthermore, alveoli become inflamed to your immune system attacks and the multiplying viruses. The inflammation can cause your alveoli to fill with fluid, making it difficult for your body to get the oxygen it needs. You could develop lobar pneumonia, where one lobe of your lungs can get affected. Or you could have bronchopneumonia that affects many areas of both the lungs. Pneumonia may cause difficulty in breathing, chest pain, coughing etc. Fever, chills, confusion, headache, muscle pain and fatigue can also happen. Check the other symptoms caused due to COVID-19 here. 

 It can also lead to more serious complications such as respiratory failure. It occurs when your breathing becomes so difficult. In this case, you need a machine called a ventilator to help you breathe. These are the machines that save lives. Medical device companies currently ramp up production to save more people.

Vaccines in Brief. 

Factors that matter.

Whether you would develop these symptoms depends on a lot of factors. Your age and whether you already have an existing condition. While all this all sounds scary, the push to develop a coronavirus vaccine is moving at high speed. Vaccines available in the market now are working very efficiently. Studies of other coronaviruses lead most researchers to assume that people who have recovered from a SARS-CoV-2 infection could be protected from reinfection for a period of time. But that assumption needs to be backed by empirical evidence and some studies suggest otherwise. There are several different approaches for a potential vaccine against coronavirus. The basic idea is that you would get a shot that contains faint versions of the virus. The vaccine would expose your body to a virus that is too weak or inactive. This inactive virus would fool the immune system to produce antibodies. Within a few weeks, cells in your immune system would make markers called antibodies. This would be specific for only the coronavirus or specifically its spike protein. Antibodies then attach to the virus and prevent it from attaching to your cells. Your immune system then responds to signals from the antibodies by consuming and destroying the clumps of viruses. If you then catch the real virus at a later stage, your body would recognize and destroy it. In other words, your immune system is now primed.

 Collecting evidence on whether this will be possible, safe and effective is part of what’s taking researchers so long to develop a vaccine. It is a race against time to develop a vaccine amid a pandemic. Each step in vaccine development usually takes months if not years. An Ebola vaccine broke records by being ready in five years. The hope here is to develop one for the new coronavirus in a record-breaking 12 to 18 months. While all this will take time, studies on the existing vaccine will continue. Till then, stay home and take the available jab. And do not forget to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds and as often as possible.