The Deadliest Virus on Earth

Fighting Rabies: How the Virus Works and How to Stop It

In this video, we learn about the deadly virus known as rabies. We explore how it infects animals and humans, how it avoids our immune system, and what makes it so difficult to treat.

The Lyssavirus

• Rabies is a deadly virus that has been haunting us for at least 4000 years.

• The lyssavirus is simple even for a virus: It has only five genes that let it solve complex problems.

• Lyssa uses one of its five proteins to hijack an amazing delivery system called Dynein motors.

How Rabies Infects Your Body

• Rabies starts with a bite from an infected animal, most likely by a dog carrying millions of viruses in its saliva.

• Lyssa probably binds to the receptors that are crucial for neuron communication and slips inside the unsuspecting nerve cells.

• Inside the cell, lyssa needs to get to the cellular machinery to take over the cell and make more viruses. It does this by using Dynein motors.

Why Our Immune System Struggles Against Rabies

• When a virus attacks your civilian cells are crucial in activating your immune response. They release hundreds of thousands of interferons that interfere with viruses.

• Unfortunately, lyssa blocks your neurons from making interferons and stays basically invisible to your immune system.

Conclusion

• Unlike many other viruses, when lyssa replicates, it doesn’t kill its host, which would also trigger alarm systems. Instead, it stealthily jumps from neuron to neuron, very slowly making its way to your brain.

Overall, this video provides a comprehensive overview of how the deadly virus known as rabies works and why it is so difficult to treat. We learn about the lyssavirus and how it infects our bodies, as well as why our immune system struggles against it.

How Rabies Kills

This section explains how the rabies virus infects and kills its host.

The Immune System's Response

• The immune system dispatches Killer T Cells to seek and kill infected cells.

• Lyssa, with its 5 proteins, uses the immune system's ingenuity against itself.

• Nerve cells can order T Cells to self-destruct if they think they are overreacting. Lyssa figured out a way to make infected neurons express this order.

How Lyssa Kills

• It is currently thought that lyssa wreaks havoc by messing up the neuron communication inside your brain so much so that it can't function anymore.

• It attacks the brain and leads to symptoms like confusion, aggression, and paralysis.

The Final Stages of Infection

• Now the virus begins to leave. Still traveling through neurons, it migrates away from the brain and heads for the salivary glands.

• You are rapidly developing encephalitis, a swelling of the brain with many unpleasant neurological symptoms, from lethargy to paralysis. Slowly at first, and then suddenly, organ after organ fails as you slip into a coma.

Vaccines Against Rabies

This section explains how vaccines work against rabies.

The Importance of Vaccines

• Rabies was one of the first diseases humans developed a vaccine for.

• The vaccine is special because Lyssa is so slow in the first few weeks, it can be given to you after you have been exposed.

The Future of Rabies

• Rabies still kills around 60,000 people each year, almost half of them children.

• It lurks in the shadows, in forests and animals of all kinds, ready to return in greater numbers if we ever forget how to keep it at bay or if we continue the trend of being suspicious of vaccines.

• There are much deeper levels of knowledge to explore about rabies than the glimpse we just showed you.

Introduction to Brilliant.org

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