Thursday, January 1, 2009
Today one of us had a cold and we immediately thought about rhinovirus. So today we are going to talk and revise rhinovirus.
Rhinovirus is one of the genera from the largest virus family called Picornaviridae.The Morphology is that there are naked virions, isometric nucleocapsid and there are common incomplete or empty capsids. The Picornaviridae genome contains an infectious genomic RNA, one linear (+) RNA, long untranslated region end of 5’ end “clover leaf” structure (IRES), single polyprotein of 2100-2400 aa and both ends are modified.
The Pathogenesis of Rhinovirus is that there will be an upper respiratory tract infection with short incubation (2-3 days) where endogenous IFN helps, there will also be locally synthesized IgA but titer decline with time and serum IgG persists for years and there are over 100 rhinoviruses.
The Symptoms that are seen are watery nasal discharge, congestion, sneezing and little or no fever.
The clinical lab diagnoses are virus culture, nasal washings, EIA and PCR.
The epidemiology is that it is present all throughout the year, a few serotypes circulating simultaneously and the virus is abundant in nasal discharge.
So what is the control? There is no vaccination as there are over 100 types and it will be a waste. What we can do is wash our hands, don’t touch our eyes or nose and we should sneeze into tissue and throw it away. Avoid people with cold and stay at home if you have a cold.
So now you should have understood about our common colds better right? Well, it’s amazing to know how far microbiology can go. By the way, when you get down with a type of rhinovirus, you will get immune to that type for life!
8:14 AM