About 60 per cent of all human illness may be attributed to viruses but with his first infection, man develops his best immunity to them, said Dr. G. John Buddingh, professor and lie ad of the department of microbiology at Louisiana State university medical school.
Buddingh, speaking at a sem-; inar at Loyola university, saidj that once an individual is in-| fected with a virus, he becomes immune to that particular virus.
"However, slight mutation of the virus may override the immunity or resistance an individual has built up," he said. "After about a year's time, a virus particle may change somewhat. Asian flu is a product of this selective survival of viruses."
He said that about 60 per cent; of infectious human diseases stem from viruses, which range in size from 100 to 220 millimi-.crons.
"Viruses are parasites which have a very unique mode of reproduction in that they attach themselves to and actually participate in the metabolic processes of many human cells," Dr. Buddingh said.
Virus is not restricted to man alone, he said. It can be found to be the cause of many infectious diseases in animals both domestic and wild.
"The reproduction of viruses ! in the study of warts has given us the beginning of a new knowledge in the study of cancer in animals, and this may give us a breakthrough in the study of cancer in humans/' he said.
The lecture was the fifth in a series of six sponsored by the! department of biological sci-ences of Loyola university.
