Microbiology 19 - Influenza and Covid-19 Flashcards
What drives zoonosis of influenza viruses from wild water fowl to humans?
Antigenic drift
What must a mutation change to produce a pandemic-producing virus ?
Transmissibility between humans
Antigenic novelty
Recall the process of influenza A cleavage
- Viral spike proteins (most important is haemaglutinnin - HA)
- Protease required to cleave HA is only found in airway (Human Airway Tryptase)
- HAT cleaves influenza A at a specific site
What is the mechanism of action of amantadine, and what is it used for?
Targets M2 ion channel
Used to treat strains types of influenza virus
What class of drug is oseltamivir (Tamiflu)?
Neuraminidase inhibitor
Prevents virus from budding off infected cell
What is the flu/influenza vaccine made up of?
Haemaglutinnin and neuraminidase proteins
Live attenuated vaccine used in young children as they have a naïve immune system and are able to mount a great and longer lasting immune response
What is the most important reason why SARS 2003 was so much easier to contain than SARS Covid 19?
Patients had easily-identifiable symptoms that developed quickly and so could be isolated - covid-19 is much more insidious!
Describe the genome of SARS-Cov2
Huge positive sense single-stranded RNA genome
What is Nsp14, and why is it important to the covid genome?
It’s a proof-reading exonuclease - which is unusual for an RNA virus
How does covid bind to cells to gain entry?
Via ACE2
How long after infection is covid infectious?
3 days
Recall 2 important factors that will be at elevated serum levels in covid infection, and can be useful clinically?
IL-6
D-dimer
What benefit is remdesivir shown to have in coronavirus?
Shortens time to recovery
In which patients is dexamethosone effective at reducing coronavirus death?
In those who are receiving oxygen
Which monoclonal is being used to treat coronavirus?
Tocilizumab - anti-IL6
Help to mediate the cytokine storm seen in COVID
Also used in Casteman’s disease (IL6 producing tumour)
