Question: How can temperature affect a virus?

Emma Wassell answered on 21 Jun 2020:

Hi Paulina,

I’m not sure if you mean body temperature or the weather so I’ll try and answer both.

Sometimes with viruses we can get a fever which is when our body heats up and makes us very warm. This is one way your body try’s to protect you from a virus and tries to fight it off. Some scientists think that a fever helps the immune cells, your bodies army, find the infection faster so it can fight it off quicker.

Weather and temperature can affect a virus in different ways depending on what the virus is – some prefer warmer temperatures and some prefer colder temperatures. For example, viruses carried by mosquitoes, like the dengue virus, seem to do better in warmer temperatures. This might be for a few reason including that mosquito eggs hatch better in warmer temperatures and also the mosquito comes infectious faster when it’s warmer. However, viruses that spread by droplets in the air, like the flu, seem to do better in colder temperatures. Scientists aren’t 100% sure why but some think it’s because more people are huddled together indoors when it’s cold meaning it spreads easier and some think it’s because of the level of moisture (wetness) in the air in the cold weather.