Unmasking the enemy

Research is a vital component in the fight against Covid-19, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), and some research questions are best answered when studying the actual virus in the laboratory.

This has enabled the NICD to develop its capacity to isolate the virus from confirmed Covid-19 cases.

By studying the virus, scientists can answer many questions regarding diseases, for example how the virus causes the disease, but also work to develop and evaluate antivirals to treat infections and vaccines to prevent infection.

This means taking samples that contain the virus and then manipulating it in the laboratory to “draw” the virus from the sample.

Viruses are essentially parasites and need live cells to multiply and, in the laboratory, this natural infection process can be mimicked in order to allow a virus to reproduce.

Scientists can then culture it – grow more of the virus – by providing artificially the cells that a virus would need to replicate.

According to the NICD, the Sars-CoV-2 virus – commonly known as Covid-19 – is on average 120 nanometres in diameter and, to compare, a human hair is between 80 000 and 100 000 nanometres wide.

The isolation and culturing of the virus is performed in a high containment laboratory, also called a biosafety level 3 laboratory, designed to provide a high level of safety and security in order for this type of work to be conducted.