Viruses

virus

Viruses (vy-rus-iz) are very tiny micro-organisms.

Viruses are even smaller than bacteria.

Viruses can only grow and reproduce inside their hosts.

Humans, animals and plants are their hosts.

Peppers effected by viruses

Most viruses cannot live long outside their hosts.

Some viruses can spread very fast inside our body.

They can make us sick.

Measles, chicken pox, polio, mumps and flu are caused by viruses.

H1N1 virus causes Influenza A(H1N1).

AIDS is caused by HIV virus.

HIV viruses in green colour

Viruses can also make plants and animals sick.

Viruses also effect bacteria.

Viruses that effect bacteria are called bacteriophage

Anyway viruses that effect plants cannot effect animals and human.

Viruses that effect human cannot effect plants and animals.

We use viruses to make vaccines.

Vaccines help our body to fight diseases.

Anyway these viruses are not the same as computer virus.

Computer viruses are not living things.

Protozoa

A Type Of Protozoa In A Bone Marrow Cell

Protozoa (pro-to-zoh-uh) are one-cell micro-organisms.

Protozoa are something like animal.

They often spread diseases through water.

They also spread diseases through insects like malaria.

Protozoa that caused malaria

Anopheles mosquito spread malaria.

Protozoa is very important because they help to balance the ecosystem.

Protozoa are important in food chains too.

Protozoa eat algae and bacteria; then they are eaten by animals and those animals are eaten by other animals and so on until they die and eaten by bacteria and the bacteria are eaten by protozoa 🙂

Bacteria

Bacteria are tiny one-cell micro-organisms.

They can reproduce inside or outside their hosts.

Their hosts are people, animals and plants.

Like other germs, bacteria don’t make their own food.

There bad bacteria and good bacteria.

Bad bacteria can cause eye infection, cholera, tuberculosis (TB) and others.

A bacteria named Salmonella can caused something like a very bad food poisoning.

Salmonella

They are sometimes found in eggs and peanut butter.

There are very dangerous bacteria named super bugs.

A type of super bug

Super-bugs are very difficult to be killed.

Super-bugs are usually found in hospital.

My grandfather was infected by super bugs when he was sick in UKMSC a few years ago.

The doctors said that I cannot visit him at that time because super bugs are even more dangerous to kids.

Good bacteria in our tummy keep us healthy by helping us to use nutrients from the food we eat.

We use good bacteria for making cheese and yoghurt.

A type of bacteria used to make cheese

Cheese and yoghurt are healthy food.

We also use good bacteria to make medicines and vaccines (vak-seens).

Medicines and vaccines help us to fight germs so that we can be healthy.

Uncle Azahar taught me that some bacteria can be bad bacteria if they are moved from their original site.