Viruses Found in Healthy Humans as Well

A new study published in the journal BioMed Central Biology has found that the same viruses that cause a number of ailments among sick people are also found in healthy people, though they do not suffer from any kind of symptoms associated with the viruses. The researchers conducted their study on a group of 102 healthy young adults between 18 and 40 years of age, analyzing five body parts that could play host to the viruses, nose, skin, mouth, stool and vagina.

The researchers found that at least one virus was found in 92 percent of the participants, with some of them carrying as many as 15 viruses. The researchers identified seven families of viruses, including one strain of herpes virus, which are not sexually transmitted, papillomavirus and adenovirus, which causes cold and pneumonia.

“We were impressed by the number of viruses we found. We only sampled up to five body sites in each person and would expect to see many more viruses if we had sampled the entire body”, lead researcher Kristine M Wylie, from Washington University School of Medicine, said.



Source-Medindia