Expert: Paras Anand - 4/11/2009

Question
It is said that viruses do not survive outside the body of the host. what is the reason for that and how does regain its action inside the host?

Answer
Viruses do not have the complete machinery to survive. Therefore they always need the machinery of the host (such as protein synthesis) to survive. Therefore, outside their host, they do not survive but as soon as they find a suitable host, they use its machinery to turn-on their basic cellular functions like multiplication and thus survive.

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