In a world of strange viruses, survival Is the real marvel

Raju Korti
I have been thinking a great deal about the Washington case where an elderly resident became the first human to die of an H5N5 bird flu strain that had never before crossed into people. It is a chilling reminder of how easily the microscopic world can ambush us. The patient lived far from the bustle of Seattle, kept a backyard flock of domestic birds, and by all accounts had no reason to imagine that a virus unknown to medicine would slip silently from his poultry into his bloodstream. He arrived at the hospital with a blazing fever, confusion and laboured breathing. Tests revealed the strain had jumped from birds into him, but thankfully it has shown no inclination to spread among humans. His isolated tragedy is a stark illustration of how little we truly control in the biological universe that swirls around us.

When I first read a deeply researched Time Magazine piece on viruses sometime in the late seventies, immunology and virology were still finding their feet. Even then, scientists warned us that humanity lives on a razor’s edge, surrounded by a cosmos of invisible particles. Today we know the scale far better. Earth is home to an estimated ten nonillion virus particles. That is a number so absurdly large that it makes the stars in the universe look sparse. Fewer than seven thousand viruses have been studied in any meaningful detail and millions more continue to exist in forms we have not catalogued. The astonishing part is that most of these do not harm humans and never will. They float in the air we breathe, drift through oceans and soil, ride on insects and animals and even infect bacteria, yet our bodies repel their advances without us even knowing.

(Pic representational)

That, to me, is the real marvel. The human immune system is a fiercely intelligent protector that learns, adapts and remembers. It keeps guard from the moment we are born until the moment we die. Every second of our lives it is intercepting invaders, neutralising threats and outsmarting organisms that would overwhelm us if not for our internal vigilance. It is almost miraculous that we survive at all in an atmosphere saturated with viruses that exist only to replicate. Their behaviour is strange. They have no cellular structure, no heartbeat, no metabolism. They are obligate parasites that do nothing until they enter a host cell. Once inside they hijack the cell’s machinery, forcing it to produce viral copies instead of doing its usual work. Some viruses behave so cleverly that they seem to bend the rules of life itself. There are giant viruses whose genomes are so complex that they mimic cellular organisms. Others display behaviours that almost feel sentient, as if they network with fellow viruses or borrow protective coats from other viruses to survive. It is a world that sits right at the edge of what we define as living.

Every now and then one of these organisms mutates or leaps across species and reminds us how vulnerable we are. The recent resurgence of chikungunya in several countries is one such reminder. Anyone who has experienced it knows the misery of its joint pains and fever. There is no cure and the fever eventually ebbs, but the pain can linger stubbornly and make even daily chores a challenge. Viral illnesses are mostly like this. A small number can be cured, but most are managed. The Hepatitis C virus is a rare triumph because modern antivirals can eliminate it in more than ninety five percent of cases. Ebola too can be cleared fully with specific treatments. But chronic infections like HIV and Hepatitis B can only be held in check. Antibiotics are useless because they work on bacteria, not viruses. For most viral diseases we treat the symptoms and wait for the body’s defences to push the invader out.

When scientists warn us about the unpredictability of bird flu strains like H5N5, they are really reminding us of the delicate interaction between humanity and the viral world. From what I can gather, viruses shape evolution. They alter genes. They influence ecosystems. A world without viruses would collapse because they keep entire biological cycles functioning. They infect plants, animals, fungi and even bacteria. They are a necessary evil in the grand design of life. Total victory over them is neither possible nor desirable. The real achievement is our ability to coexist with them without being destroyed.

As I reflect on the Washington case, I realise that fear should not be the dominant emotion. Awareness is essential, vigilance matters, and responding with science instead of panic is what keeps us safe. The miracle is not that there are outbreaks. The miracle is that outbreaks are so rare when the world is saturated with trillions upon trillions of viral particles. Our survival is a quiet daily triumph of biology over chaos. Viruses were here long before us and will be here long after us, yet we continue to flourish in a world teeming with them. In the end, coexistence is the only equilibrium nature offers and the one we must continue to respect.