Extremely small energy requirement by poliovirus to proliferate itself is the key to an outbreak of an epidemic Online publication date: Mon, 07-Jan-2019
by Sevgi Eylül Ferahcan; Ayşe Selcen Semerciöz; Mustafa Özilgen
International Journal of Exergy (IJEX), Vol. 28, No. 1, 2019
Abstract: Poliovirus is an RNA virus which proliferate itself in the intestines. Thermodynamic assessment of the proliferation process has been assessed after calculating the energy and exergy of the RNA with the group contribution method. Mass, energy and exergy balances are performed to calculate the energy and exergy exploited from the host cell as 4.65 × 10−19 and 3.35 × 10−17 kJ, respectively. In a typical epidemic in 1988, 350,000 cases were reported, implying that the total of 1.627 × 10−9 kJ of energy 1.174 × 10−7 kJ of exergy was exploited from them during the epidemic. Although the energy and exergy efficiency of virus generation in a host cell were very small, e.g., 1.376 × 10−6 and 9.78 × 10−5, respectively; energy and exergy employed in this process was very small implying that extremely small energy and exergy requirement by poliovirus to proliferate itself is the key to an outbreak of an epidemic.
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