Mirobes, Immunity & Health Care System - Article : 3

Now it is clear, that our life is a gift of "Nature" and have emerged from a tiny primordial cell of our common ancestor, " Bacterium". Therefore, our relationship with microbes are not new at all, rather from the day of our birth on earth, we always used to feel their existence around us. So, we should have had a brief idea about them and their types as well. Now let us have a look on microbes and their family.

In true sense, microbes by name stands for microscopic identity or organisms of unicellular or multicellular type, basically invisible to the nicked eye and being very diverse, they generally include bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoa etc. Now one may ask about "Viruses" that why they are missing in microbe family? Actually, viruses are a microscopic non-living incomplete cellular identity or parasites, consisting of a small piece of genetic materials (RNA or DNA) packaged with a protein coat  & sometimes, a layer of lipid envelope too and they can not reproduce, replicate, & cultivate energy for their survival without the active support of host cell of a living organism. Most of the microbes known to us are beneficial to living organism as well as to our environment. But a few of them (i.e. 1% of them approximately around 1400) are harmful to us & are called pathogens or germs. In this germ category, virus includes along with microbe family. Although, some scientists consider viruses in microbe family too, as they also play the same role similar to other living parasitic character of microbe family, indirectly by infecting host cells despite of their incomplete non-living cell identity. 

So, as a whole it looks very amazing that both bacteria and virus exists parallelly in nature and surprisingly play a similar role too, but in different manner. Besides, viruses are very selective in their choice of host cells i.e. viruses those infect plants never infect animals or those infect animal species other than human, normally never infect humans but they can jump and infect human under suitable conditions when human knowingly or un-knowingly comes in direct or indirect contacts with other infected animals. Now, let us know how our body actively fights against those dreadful pathogenic attacks, to save our life in time. The mechanism which protects us from pathogenic infections is called immunity. There are three types immunity i.e. (i) Innate immunity (Non-specific type) (ii) Adaptive immunity (Specific type) and Passive immunity. 

Eventually, we all used to get some level of general non-specific immunity to invaders by birth and is called innate immunity which includes the external barriers of our body as a first line of defense against pathogens, such as our skins, mucous membranes of our throat, nose, and gut etc. Now if the pathogen somehow manages to dodge the attacks of innate immunity, adaptive immunity starts functioning immediately to produce specific antibody against the antigen of specific invaders and bind them to kill in due course as well as makes a copy of antibodies against different pathogens in the immunological memory for protecting us from those pathogens in future. On the other hand, passive immunity comes from different sources other than our body such as i) immunity of newborn baby through breast milk of mother ii) vaccination against highly infectious diseases etc. 

In this context, the role of blood is very significant. As you all know that our blood comprises of two major constituent parts i.e. RBC (Erythrocyte) & WBC (Leukocytes). In this, leukocytes are responsible for i) detecting & identifying foreign invaders or pathogens throughout the body, ii) making 'B' cell to produce specific antibody against a particular pathogens for binding the same, iii) making 'T' cell for killing the pathogens or eliminating dead cells of our body as well as remembering the same pathogens for future protection purpose. Therefore, the entire immune system solely depends on the performance of WBC whereas, our blood groups (i.e. A, B, AB, & O) determines the compatibility factor between consecutive blood groups during blood transfusion process and also  works as an indicative tools of possible susceptibility to various infections or diseases. In addition to that, there are some other factors also, which directly or indirectly influences our immunity system, such as i) Food habits, ii) Quality of food,  iii) Standard of living, iv) Customs & manners, v) Economical conditions, & vi) Geographic locations & Environmental differences etc. 

However, it's true that in last few decades, we have seen an unprecedented progress in science & technology which attributes to many discoveries & inventions in medical field to make human life more safe and secure. But it is not the end, rather there may be some more things to learn such as the behavioral differences of human immunity from people to people and how rapidly our immunity recognizes the unknown pathogens for making specific antibody and also, how long this immunity lasts at all. Because, we are still looking uncertain to combat against deadly viruses like "Corona" in present day pandemic, despite of considerably advanced medical facilities available with us. It seems that we might have failed to understand the deadly characteristics of "Coronavirus" in time and thus it has resulted spreading in electrifying speed, from China to 225 countries around the world, affecting more than 3.8 billion population by covid-19 and caused more than 5.7 million death throughout the world.  

On the other hand, we have seen lack of coordination as well as uncertainty amongst medical professionals & scientists throughout the world while combating this deadly viruses and thus, various kinds of misinformation have started propagating in the public domain to create world wide panics & confusions. Though, WHO time to time has issued advisories to the common people mainly for maintaining social distances,  wearing masks, & cleaning hands etc.

But the basic problem to the common people, is their ignorance on general health & hygiene and that is the main reason why they are always remain unaware of their own power of immunity which combats against most of the diseases caused by internal & external factors. In this respect the role of "Doctors & Scientists" are very important as they not only, can find out the reason of diseases but also can make people aware of importance of good health in connection to their fight against various diseases, in right time and in right manner so that none of them becomes a victim of panics due to fake publicities of few agencies to fulfill their vested interests (if any).

Moreover, I think that our medical science should be flexible enough to check & accept the possibility of other concept of treatments very seriously at least in terms of its application and methodology, so that the diagnostic outcome of any disease, can be treated in a new approach where a selective & collective concept of both conventional as well as non-conventional way of treatment altogether, will be adapted with the application of both non-herbal or herbal medicinal elements which in due course may prove to be effective for curing the disease and also may reduce the chance of any harm to the human health during the course of treatment and post treatment period.