book✔read⚡ Viruses: The Invisible Enemy (Oxford Landmark Science)

Viruses: The Invisible Enemy (Oxford Landmark Science)
Description :
For all our hubris, humans can be felled rapidly by an invisible
enemy - viruses.All around us are minute entities that can damage
and kill: the millions of viruses that pervade the natural world. Our

bodies harbour many that we have long tolerated, but a new one,
that jumps into humans from another species, can be lethal - as we
have seen most recently with the virus responsible for COVID-19.
But what are viruses, how do they cause disease, and how can we
fight them?In Viruses: The Invisible Enemy, a brand new edition of
her classic work, virologist Dorothy Crawford explores these
questions. She takes the reader on a journey through the past to
show how, as the human race evolved from hunter gatherer to
farmer to our present urban, industrialised society, viruses have
taken advantage of each lifestyle change to promote their own
survival.We have acquired many new viruses along the way, some
spreading globally and causing killer diseases. But now, in the 21st
century, as humans increasingly encroach into and exploit the
natural world, the rate of emergence of novel viruses is accelerating.
Already we've had a flu pandemic, large epidemics from SARS, Ebola
and Zika viruses, and most devastating of all, SARS-CoV-2, which
swept around the world in 2020-21, causing the COVID-19
pandemic. The response of scientists has been rapid,producing
vaccines in record time. But we can expect more such challenges in
the future. This book discusses why and how SARS-CoV-2 and other
killer viruses emerged, and how we can win the battle against such
an enemy.