Monkeypox, West Nile Virus, Langya and more… As if COVID-19 weren’t enough, we often hear the names of many different viruses in the news. So what happened that these virus names flooded us?

He has researched viruses for over 20 years, worked as a senior manager at a biotechnology company in the US, and we know him for his informative social media posts. Virologist Dr. Semih Tareen (Virus Phantom), He answered the questions we asked him in a language that everyone can understand. Explaining this situation, said Dr. We listen from Mr Semih:

After COVID-19, there is a selective perception among both the news audience and reporters.

Semih Tareen

news channels and media, because it’s popular started to record mainly virus news. Of course, according to the style of the news channel, some of them can give good news on this subject, while others give news in the style of more catastrophic news and share virus news with people.

There is also a selective perception in terms of the audience and the reader.

For fear of “I wonder if something like this is going to happen again” after COVID-19, and also because such news is much more likely to be shared on social media. selective perception The impression is that there is an increase in virus news.

But this is a fact; news channels also specifically address these issues.

For example, in 2014 the World Health Organization declared a state of emergency for the polio virus due to the increase in polio cases. We’ve never heard of it on the news. Why? Because it was pre-COVID-19.

Before COVID-19, there were viral epidemics that were very important to human health, but we didn’t hear the news of them like the viruses we hear as often as we do now. In 2014, of course, the Zika virus outbreak was in the news, but If the Zika virus epidemic were now It would certainly be approached in a very different way.

Another fact: After COVID-19, countries, governments, companies, i.e. biotechnology companies and public health institutions, are paying more attention to new viral epidemics.

New virus news, be it a website or other gadgets it can get into people’s hands much easier. This is thanks to technology, intergovernmental collaboration and platforms created after COVID-19.

For example; for previous influenza virus outbreaks and for influenza virus variants nextstrain.org There was a site called, this site was used for flu virus tracking, and it started to be used for SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants during the COVID-19 period, so the virus variants are now available to all researchers.

When I say variants, I mean the genetic sequence and genetic information of these variants. Sharing between scientists has become easier thanks to such database sites, so scientists are tweeting more and they can give more information and this can also be news more often.

Another factor is the ease of PCR testing.

PCR tests used in the diagnosis of COVID-19 are already a widely used test in science, and thanks to the PCR test, we can now detect viruses that we were not aware of before. we can confirm much easier, We can easily understand what is what.

For example, we used to do PCR scans in sewage water and we didn’t get any information about which virus is present, but after COVID-19 we now see the advantage of that PCR test. And now of course the monkey pox virus that we heard about in the news, etc. for this kind PCR genetic diagnostic test can be done easily, In this way, diagnoses can be made much more accurately.

In the past, for example, someone went to the doctor with complaints, the doctor did not know what it was, but he gave medicine to relieve the complaints and sent the patient home. But now the situation is a little different. In many parts of the world, when a certain infectious disease is suspected, a genetic diagnosis can be made and this information is processed in databases. And of course from there Wherever there is a new viral epidemic, we are informed.

Actually, this is nothing new.

We virologists monitor new outbreaks in different parts of the world every week. To keep up with these new outbreaks promedmail.org There are many good database sites like: Here we can see viral outbreaks popping up weekly in different corners of the world, and this is nothing new.

These types of virus outbreaks had been going on all along anyway. It’s like for all the reasons I just mentioned It gives a more compressed air. One of the things that drives this mood is the selectivity in perception, and the other is the diagnostic tests that we have after COVID-19, which give importance to this problem and understand the seriousness of this problem.

Finally, let me remind you: Viruses have been around for billions of years, and if humanity disappears, they will survive one day after humans.

So in a way we can think of this place as a virus planet. because a drop of ocean water contains billions of virus particles and we are visitors to this lifetime too, and viral outbreaks have always been and always will be.

It is a perfectly normal fact of biology and life. The important thing is; to be well informed, to be informed and to continue our lives with science. When disaster news is made ignoring the news of a disaster. Instead of getting the right information from real science and publications, to live in an informed way without panicking.

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