I haven’t come across as many science words in any year as in 2020 and this is all thanks to our current situation. So I thought why not summarize all the biology related words that have entered our normal conversational vocabulary over the past year for our readers. Below is the list with the meanings in the context of the current pandemic
Covid-19: As defined by WHO, this is an infectious disease caused by newly discovered coronavirus.
Symptomatic spread: Patient showing symptoms of an infection which can be transmitted to others. Some examples of such infections are the common cold, flu.
Symptomatic spread
Asymptomatic spread: Spread of an infection when the patient is not showing any symptoms. This is the small window in time before the symptoms start appearing. Some examples of such infections are tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid.
RT-PCR: This is a type of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology which converts RNA into DNA before the amplification step. Reverse transcriptase (RT) is the enzyme used to convert RNA into complementary DNA, hence the name RT-PCR. The genetic material in Covid-19 is encoded as RNA, hence RT-PCR is the technique used to detect viruses from nasal swab samples. Hepatitis C and Influenze A are other examples of RNA viruses.
Viral load: The amount of a particular virus present in the body. This is usually measured from blood or plasma samples and a commonly used terminology for HIV disease. RT-PCR technology is used to determine viral load for Covid-19 infection. Viral load assessment in case of Covid-19 is used to determine infectivity, disease type, morbidity and mortality.
Viral strain: Viruses like all organisms replicates and multiply to survive in the host. During such divisions, mutations get accumulated. Some mutations become permanent if they provide an advantage to survive which can be in the form of a phenotypic change. When such new types of viruses arise, they are termed as strains. Influenza A,B,C are examples of strains of influenza virus.
Viral variant: A mutation which changes the genome of an organism in this case a virus is called a variant.
Virus
Immunogenicity: Ability of a pathogen to trigger immune response in the host. Scientists use Immunogenicity to measure the effectiveness of the vaccine over a period of time.
Pre-existing condition: in the context of healthcare, a medical condition which exists before the start of a health insurance plan is called Pre-existing condition.
Antibody test: A test to measure antibodies which gives an indication of whether the patient had previous infection.
Antigens: A foreign substance which induces an immune response.
Pandemic: a disease which is present in the entire country or world. Swine flu pandemic of 2009 is one example.
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