Virus hereditary and/or contagious?

[~Vulpine~]

Can a virus be contagious AND hereditary, or just one? For instance, could someone else catch it from a blood transfusion, and any children they have later on would have it too? This is a made-up virus for a book, so it probably doesn't even matter if it could happen in real life, but I'm a stickler for making everything scientific ;)

xXx

[~max~]

I don't think a virus can be hereditary as it is an acquired condition, and wouldn't be present in the genes (I think!). Some can however be transmitted from the mother to the fetus during birth (HIV for example). It's an interesting point actually, I hope someone will have more info on this!

[Ice.Maiden]

I'd say that max's right. Viruses can be passed on, but hereditary literally means things being able to be passed down as well ! Perhaps the latter refers to genetic problems, whereas HIV for example is passed on via body fluids, such as semen or blood.

[babybombo]

Viruses can't be hereditory. Like max and ice maiden have said, vriuses can be passed on from mother to child but not in a hereditory way.
Viruses, like HIV, are passed on from mother to child only if the blood from the mother mixes with that of the child at some point during child birth.
So there is no actual genetic link, which is needed for something to be considered hereditory, only foreign antigens being introduced to the child's blood.
But in a way the virus has been passed on from the mother.

[~Vulpine~]

That's great everybody - thanks! I'm going to have to do a bit more tweaking with how my fictional virus is passed on, then ;)