Question: whats in a flu virus?

Claire Donald answered on 19 Jun 2018:

Flu (or influenza to give it its fancy name) is a virus. All viruses consist of a fragment of genetic material inside a protective protein coat. The protein coat is made up of human and virus proteins and the genetic material can be either DNA or RNA.

DNA viruses (like the virus that causes chicken pox) contains DNA which is exactly like the DNA in our cells. RNA viruses (like the flu virus) contain RNA. RNA is similar to DNA except RNA has a sugar called ribose while DNA has a sugar called deoxyribose. This RNA encodes all the viral genes in the same way that our DNA encodes all of our genes. The virus needs the proteins in our cells to turn the viral genes into viral proteins to make into new virus particles. These new virus particles can then be released from the cell and spread to other cells and make us sick.