PRESENTATION OUTLINE
GUAICO CULEX VIRUS (GCXV)
The Guaico Culex Virus is very strange it made a lot of scientists have to rethink about how animals get viruses.
Most viruses have simple architecture. Think of viruses like this. Tiny tennis balls with spikes and all it takes is one of those to stick to one cell and poof! The cell is infected.
That is not the case for Guaico Culex Virus. A team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases has found a mosquito virus that's broken up into pieces. And the mosquito needs to catch several of the pieces to get an infection.
To be able to get infected with the virus, a mosquito needs to catch at least four different genes. Think of it like a recipe. That you need four ingredients but the fifth is optional. The fifth gene controls how dangerous your virus is.
The GCXV was found when scientists were looking at mosquitoes. Multicomponent viruses use a method of transmission that's different from other viruses known to infect animals. At first they scientists thought it was spread only to fungus and plants but later they found out it effected animals to.
Scientists haven't seen it effect humans yet. So no vaccines for it. They also haven't seen any terrible things happen from it. Though they believe it could get worse, they think that the virus just has an inaccurate transmission.
More and more information is being found on this virus. I hope you all learned a lot about Guaico Culex Virus.
