Corona Covid-19: Virus:

Corona Covid-19: Virus:

Viruses

With the exception of newly discovered prions, viruses are the smallest agents of infectious disease. Most viruses are exceedingly small (about 20 - 200 nanometers in diameter) and essentially round in shape. They consist of little more than a small piece of genetic material surrounded by a thin protein coating. Some viruses are also surrounded by a thin, fatty envelope.

Viruses are different from all other infectious microorganisms because they are the only group of microorganisms that cannot replicate outside of a host cell. Because viruses do not eat food - instead they seize materials and energy from host cells by hijacking cellular machinery - some scientists argue that they are more like complex molecules than living creatures. Viruses are known to infect nearly every type of organism on Earth. Some viruses, called bacteriophages, even infect bacteria.

At Microchem Laboratory, we have made use of the physical similarity between animal viruses and certain bacteriophages to do faster, more cost-effective virucidal testing. Simply put, certain bacteriophages are great surrogates for mammalian viruses when it comes to disinfectant testing.