People learned of the existence of viruses at the end of the 19th century and immediately began to fight them. This is why mankind learned to create antiviral drugs and vaccines, which, for example, made the world free of smallpox forever.
But how many viruses still exist, and are all of them dangerous?
Humanity was the first to discover the tobacco mosaic virus, which exclusively affects plants. It was discovered by Dmitri Ivanovsky in 1892. Is it dangerous? For more than 350 species of plants, yes, because the virus kills the green pigment, forces the cells to actively divide, destroying the protective layer. This causes the diseased plants to lag behind in their development, which can lead to a poor harvest.
The most studied virus is bacteriophage T4. And it is the only virus that is beneficial, because it destroys bacteria. Thanks to its work, the human body protects itself from intestinal infections.
The most relevant virus, as it is not difficult to guess, is considered coronavirus. During the three years of its existence, it has repeatedly mutated, but its principle is still the same: the patient falls ill with severe pneumonia. Despite the fact that the virus has been everywhere except Antarctica, it can hardly be called the scariest.
HIV is one of the scariest viruses in existence. At least for half a century. Of course, now there is effective therapy that keeps people alive, but from 1981 to 2010 it killed about 30 million people.
But the most lethal is considered to be the virus called Ebola fever. Although the outbreak was stopped in 2016 by the development of a vaccine, it has an average mortality rate of about 50 percent. In past outbreaks, it was as high as 90%.
Prior to the middle of the 20th century, poliovirus was also a threat, as it developed paralysis in children under 5 years of age. This terrible disease was often fatal. Fortunately, in most countries today the virus is almost defeated thanks to the developed vaccine.
Of course, animals also have the deadly virus. It destroys all parked ungulates. Although it was discovered in 1546, the causative agent was not found until 1922. It is a virus of foot-and-mouth disease, which can also infect humans, but for humans it does not pose a serious threat.
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