By Hanaa Bardi
As for what you can do to minimize the viral transmission, have you thought about the fecal spreading of the Coronavirus? Yes, it spreads through POOP; it seems like a significant need for a totally new PPE invention has arisen!
The spreading through respiratory droplets was not able to fully count for all the positive Covid-19 cases which led to research other ways of transmission revealing that the GI tract involvement was amplified; David Johnson MD – Gastroenterology professor at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, stated that multiple fecal samples had a high viral load evidence for nearly over 12 days after the respiratory droplets were clear; meaning that even after Covid-19 patients are recovered and fully discharged, the infectious potential risk is still there through feces.
Let’s start with the basics, the Corona virus has an outer membrane made up of fatty molecules that scientists call lipids, this membrane has spikes of proteins floating on it giving it the appearance of a crown which provides the virus with its name. Inside it’s a molecule of RNA, it is a chemical similar to DNA where the virus’s genome is written, when the virus gets inside the body the protein spikes link up with the proteins found on the surface cells in the lungs’ airways which facilitates the process of viruses breaking inside the human cells where it releases the RNA that carries the viruses genes to take over the protein-making machinery and start building blocks for more virus’s pass-codes giving instructions to build the molecular machine that copies the virus’s RNA. The new viruses are then released from the hosting cell to attack more healthy cells spreading the virus.
This replicase system is actually a good target for disrupting how the virus works, so the focus should be on searching how to stop the virus replication process without harming the healthy human cells.
Developing a drug from scratch that could do this and the trials to prove that it is safe for human use may take up to years, the reason why some existing drugs are being re-purposed to treat Covid-19 patients as I mentioned in my previous article http://millennialsera.com/index.php/2020/03/30/coronavirus-skeptic-a-real-story-of-a-houston-millennials-infected-mother/ about the Hydroxycloroquine use.
Plasma transfusion for Covid-19 treatment.
While some drugs are more promising such as the Remdesivir that was originally developed to treat Ebola virus by blocking the replicase system, others are trying out Plasma transfusion from fully recovered Covid-19 patients to others who are critically ill; the Texas Medical Center Houston Methodist has been claimed as the first healthcare facility in the nation to perform plasma transfusion on Covid-19 patients.
Plasma is extracted by spinning blood tubes in the centrifuge, a similar process of what is known as PRP (platelet rich plasma) used in aesthetics and other specialties, when blood samples are donated by fully recovered Covid-19 patients, the plasma contains antibodies that will help the receiving patients to fight against the coronavirus.
Asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic and the scary symptomatic.
As I mentioned above, viruses take over the machinery of the hosting cell and its organelles in order to replicate and generate more viruses following similar steps of attachment, penetration, uncoating, replication, assembly and release. You may have wondered how many viruses have to be contracted to lead to an infection, the answer is: There is no known minimal dose yet, but there is ultimately a significant difference in the viral load and transmission between a person who is symptomatic and another who is not.
In some sense, symptomatic versus asymptomatic should not be the dividing line to focus on. It is ultimately a documented versus an undocumented infection; it is well known that the virus spreads mainly by droplets that are released by symptomatic infected cases while coughing and sneezing. However, there are micro droplets that are generated by only speaking, breathing or just clearing up throats making some policies doubtful. I decided to dive in more data and found out that most essential business employees are required to stay home only when symptomatic and these policies writers have been probably misled by false facts indicating that an infectious potential risk is only present when symptoms are there which is not true!
So all in all, it is crucial for us to limit all possible exposure to the coronavirus and what’s trending has to stay up the curve for now, social distancing, proper hygiene and hand washing as if you need to rub your eyes after you have just touched an open chili pepper.
