eli5: What is the goal of bacteria or viruses that make humans sick? Why do they weaken their host?
In: Biology
A lot of the deseases we have nowadays are so distructive because they were originally diseases that farm animals like cows, sheep, etc. were affected by. Because we used to live so close to these animals though the bacteria causing those diseases were able to infect us because of random mutations. So basically those diseases are more or less harmless for farm animals because the bacteria obviously only want a host for as long as possible… killing the host would also kill their home. But because humans dont have the neccessary physique to keep those bacteria in check inside their bodies the diseases are a lot more harmful.
This is btw also a reason why we europeans brought so many diseases to america when it was colonized but we didnt really bring any diseases back from there: there were barely domesticated animals in america. The only ones that the tribes living there could successfully domesticate were llamas. Which meant that the diseases that we europeans learned to deal with over centuries were completely new for the native tribes there and caught their immune system off guard, killing almost all of them.
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