Re: virus movement in blood

1) No, you can't see virus particles with a regular light microscope.
You need electron microscopy for this.

2) Your sentence "...viruses, or any other parasite" leads me to believe
that you do not know exactly what a virus is or what a parasite is.
These are two totally different terms. What news article have you been
reading lately? I'm not being facetious here; usually reading something
in a magazine or news article sparks a question that is seemingly simple
on the surface, but isn't at all. [I have to laugh at the 30 second
scientific sound bites on the news, as they barely scratch the surface
of many scientific topics and only serve to confuse the public.]

Viruses are parasites of a cell - they live inside a cell, replicate,
and then break open the cell to spread to other cells. They are
identified in the laboratory by inoculating the sample to be tested onto
a known cell line. These cells are monitored over the course of a few
days. If the cells start to look "funny" (the lab term I believe is
cytopathic effect - I don't work in virology so only know real basic
stuff) the cells are stained with fluorescent stains (monoclonal
antibodies) specific for certain viruses. When you get the right one,
there are certain patterns that show up on the cells. The technologist
doesn't actually see the virus particles, but the staining effects on
the cells that they are grown on. By the trained tech's knowledge of the
fluorescent antibody mixture used on these cells plus how the cells look
when stained, they can usually identify the virus involved in the
sample. That's the much simplified overview.

Parasites in the blood are a totally different ball game. The most
infamous blood parasite is the malaria parasite. There are others like
Trypanosoma cruzi, Babesia, etc. Some of these infect the cells (malaria
invades the red cell) but on a different level than viruses.

http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/HTML/Frames/body_blood_listing.htm (CDC site
listing the many blood-borne parasites)

http://tinyurl.com/m5kxp (Google images search of parasite+blood)

Microbiology, Parasitology, and Virology are huge broad topics that
cannot adequately be covered in depth in this forum. If you're
interested in these topics, my suggestion would be to get a basic
textbook on any of these topics and start reading.

Good luck.

Judy Dilworth, M.T. (ASCP)
Microbiology

<dreams.mix@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1141781897.315027.286390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I need to know the answers of the following questions:
1- is viruses "like flu virus" can be seen through microscope in blood
sample?

.

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