What is the difference between a bacterium and a virus?

A virus is much smaller than a bacterium. Bacteria are usually able to reproduce themselves by duplicating their DNA and then dividing (fission). Viruses, on the other hand, are obligate parasites and cannot duplicate themselves. They trick the host (bacterium, plant, or animal) into producing copies of the viral DNA or RNA and even packaging thousands of them for delivery to another cell. Bacteria can barely be seen with a light microscope magnified 1,000 times. If a bacteria were the size of a small dog the viral particle would be about the size of a mosquito. We can see them with an electron microscope that magnifies much more than a light microscope. Getting rid of them is much more complicated. Some viruses such as herpes become grafted into the DNA of the host and re-active occaisionally producing viral particles and causing an outbreak. The only way to kill these would be to kill the cells they are found in which are needed by the host (nerve cells in the case of herpes). Some viruses have indeed been eradicated, as in the case of smallpox, by effective vaccination campaigns but many viruses change their surfaces often making vaccination difficult. Bacteria are found just about everywhere and eliminating them is impossible and not even desirable. They serve many needs in the ecosystem. Disease causing bacteria are quite varied and some (such as syphilis and ghonrrhea) could indeed be eradicated if people were compliant with treatments and would lead more health conscious lives.

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Bacteria are prokaryotes and have genetic material enclosed in a nucleus and are living organisms. Viruses cannot live without a host cell to reproduce from. They inject their genetic material into the host cell in order to reproduce the virus. The genetic material is surrounded by a protien coat rather than inside a nuclei surrounded by a cell membrane. That's a very basic explination, you might want to look the answer up on the internet to get further information. However, their are several different kinds of bacteria and viruses so knowing a basic structural and functional difference insn't going to make it any easier to "get rid of" them as they adapt very quickly to their environments and methods so sqwelch their existence.

Bacteria are living, single-celled critters that are generally self-contained: they have all the necessary systems for ingesting food, digesting it, eliminating wastes, and reproducing. Disease-causing bacteria invade the host animal and feed off it until the natural defensive mechanisms (perhaps supplemented with antibiotics) catch up with and destroy the germ.

Viruses are much simpler little beasties -- they consist of little more than a cell wall and nucleic acids. To grow and reproduce, a virus must invade a host cell and insert its nucleic acid in the genetic structure of the host, thereby subverting the normal processes. The genetic instructions for the host are now altered so that, rather than making copies of itself, it starts making copies of the invading virus. When the cell is filled with these replicated viri, the cell bursts and the virus particles flood out to find and invade new host cells.

Getting rid of bacteria and viruses is much harder than just saying, "Die, you little bastards!" Because bacteria and viruses reproduce so rapidly, they go through hundreds or thousands of generations in the same time that other, more complicated organisms go through one generation. This enables them to mutate very rapidly, constantly finding more successful versions of the original. This is what has led to antibiotic-resistant strains of some bacterial diseases -- if the bacteria is not completely killed by the antibiotic, the surviving bugs most likely have mutated in such a way as to provide some resistance to that antibiotic. And developing a new antibiotic can take 20 years or more, and all the while, the bacteria are changing, changing, changing. To add insult to injury, antibiotics are completely useless against most viruses, because the only way to stop them is to kill the host cells -- which may be the cells in your own body! In other words, the only way to stop viruses is to poison yourself - - - or let the immune system respond in its own fascinating way.

The World Health Organization (WHO) made a huge push to eradicate smallpox when I was younger -- EVERYBODY was vaccinated against smallpox, with tremendous success. In the 70's, WHO declared that smallpox was "eradicated" -- and they stopped vaccinating against it. Yet there are still rare cases that pop up from this supposedly "extinct" disease. T

Bugs are really tough to kill, and nigh unto impossible to be sure that you've in fact killed every single one forever.

Um.. I dont think bacterium causes a virus, but I know the difference, its kinda long to type out but I found this great site that explains it. http://www.microbe.org/microbes/virus_or_bacterium...

One diff. is bacteria can be killed w/antibiotics where as virus are not affected by them. I think but am not sure....Viruses can mutate/evolve from their original design. Viruses are what we try to invent vaccines to prevent outbreaks such as Aids & Smallpox.

Bateria causes viruses