Question: How do viruses mutate?

Cheryl Andisi answered on 16 Jan 2017:

@Dolly da Gucci,
Different viruses use different strategies to mutate. Most of these mutations are used by the virus in order to ensure that they can survive when they infect you, even though they might have already infected you before.
In biology, your immune system protects you from any foreign organisms, including viruses. To do this, when you get a virus infection such as a flu, your body will fight this and keep a “memory” so that the next time the same virus tries to infect you it is easily defeated. However, some viruses eg Flu, and some parasites eg malaria parasites, are very clever! Every time they infect any person, they will change some of their parts that your body can easily identify-a strategy known as immune evasion. They do this by for example keeping many copies of the genes that determine their outer surface structures (coat) and randomly picking one of the genes every time. In some cases, they will introduce changes in the genes causing slight differences that make it impossible for your body to remember them. By doing so, these viruses are then able cause disease or in the case of the HIV virus, avoid being cleared by the immune system thus causing non-treatable disease.
Did you know that some viruses are capable of changing your genetic make up? Examples include the human papilloma virus which can cause mutations in the human genome and this is thought to result in cancers. The HIV virus also tricks your body to make many copies of itself by becoming part of your genetic make up.