Question: Why are germs bad? What do they do to affect us

Carmen Denman answered on 16 Mar 2015:

Hi Lottie,

‘Germs’ or microorganisms aren’t always bad. There are plenty of good bacteria and fungi and viruses. However, sometimes microorganisms can be or can turn ‘pathogenic’ and that is when they are able to cause disease in humans, animals, plants. These ‘germs’ or microorganisms like parasties or bacteria they want to live and survive just like we do, only they need to find a ‘host’ in order to survive and spread. So they can colonise our guts and can cause food poisoning by using toxins and other proteins to make our gut cells sick. They can set up shop in our respiratory tract and make it difficult for our lungs to work (pneumonia) or they can be opportunistic and when we have broken a leg or need to go to hospital they can colonise us on a medical implant or we can pick the ‘germ’ up from the hospital environment (e.g. Pseudomonas). Many types of ‘germs’ not all of them as bad, and a whole tool box of ways to make us ill. Thankfully, with vaccines and our immune systems we can do battle against the germs.

Caremn