FOR KIDS: Surprisingly hardy flu germs

Flu-causing viruses may live for days or even months outside the body

Web edition : Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

For a human, an infection often means getting sick. But for a virus, an infection means survival. ?

Viruses are tiny, disease-causing germs that can reproduce only inside an organism they?ve invaded. If these microbes end up outside the body, expelled through the nose by a sneeze or wiped on a sleeve, it?s hard for them to survive. When they?re unable to infect anything, viruses dry up and eventually die.

But that might be a long time, according to a team of scientists in France that recently put nasty viruses to the test. The team found that under the right conditions, a virus outside a host might survive and be able to cause infections for more than six months.

Visit the new?Science News for Kids?website?and read the full story:?Surprisingly hardy flu germs

Found in: Science News For Kids

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/336839/title/FOR_KIDS_Surprisingly_hardy_flu_germs

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