(WYTV) – During the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve heard from the health experts and they come with different names: the immunologists, the virologists and the epidemiologists.
All three professions are vital, but what do they mean?
The best way to tell them apart is to look at the root word of each title.
Immunologists deal with the immune system.
An immunologist might research how the immune system behaves when it’s threatened, or how to treat patients who have autoimmune diseases or allergies their immune systems aren’t battling.
Virologists study the viruses themselves, how they replicate, what diseases they cause, how to classify them.
Understanding how viruses behave in our bodies can help us fight them.
Since vaccines involve our immune systems, immunologists and virologists work together to develop new vaccines.
Finally, epidemiologists focus more on what’s going on outside the body. They track the spread of a disease, how it gets transmitted, which people are the most vulnerable, how to keep from catching it.
Epidemiologists study epidemics.
