Virology News and Research

Latest Virology News and Research

Bird flu spreads in China while Bush's $ 7.1 billion pandemic fund stalls

As World health experts predicted there will be more human bird flu infections in China, the U.S. Congress has stalled the funding of President George W. Bush's plan to cope with a pandemic.

20 Nov 2005

Human bird flu cases confirmed in China

According to official sources in China, at least one person has died from bird flu, confirming widespread suspicion that the deadly virus has now spread in people in another large Asian country where it might prove hard to contain.

16 Nov 2005

Fury over delay in Libyan Court ruling on children infected with AIDS

A delay by Libya's Supreme Court in reaching a decision on the appeal of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, condemned to death for infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the AIDS virus, has infuriated the children's parents who hurled stones and bottles at police outside the court.

16 Nov 2005

Gene therapy potential of the protein vasostatin for treatment of pancreatic cancer

A gene responsible for the production of a protein called vasostatin may prove a promising new way of treating pancreatic cancer, suggests research published ahead of print in Gut.

15 Nov 2005

Battle on birdflu - Vietnam culls, China vaccinates, Indonesia ignores!

Vietnam has slaughtered thousands of birds in its two largest cities this week while other Asian nations have also upped their efforts to halt the spread of deadly avian flu.

15 Nov 2005

Special prisons for AIDS convicts in China

According to the state media, in an attempt to stop the spread HIV/AIDS at least two prisons are to be build exclusively for HIV/AIDS-infected convicts.

15 Nov 2005

Vietnamese researchers say bird flu already resisant to Tamiflu

Scientists in Vietnam are concerned that the deadly bird flu may have infected two more people, and they suspect the virus may have mutated into a more dangerous form which could spread in mammals, and cause outbreaks in poultry.

15 Nov 2005

Better understanding of cancer cachexia

New research shows that a wasting condition responsible for nearly a third of all cancer deaths involves the loss of an essential muscle protein that is also lost in people with muscular dystrophy.

15 Nov 2005

High alert as Taiwan finds highly pathogenic bird flu strain H7N3

According to officials in Taiwan they have found a highly pathogenic strain of avian flu, H7N3, in droppings left by a migratory bird.

14 Nov 2005

Largest hepatitis-C U.S. study defines optimal therapy

Final results of the WIN-R trial,[1] the largest hepatitis C study conducted in U.S. patients, showed that weight-based REBETOL (ribavirin, USP) in combination therapy with PEG-INTRON (peginterferon alfa-2b) achieved significantly higher rates of sustained virologic response (SVR)[2] and lower rates of relapse compared to the combination therapy using a flat dose of ribavirin.

14 Nov 2005

Teenage suicides and Tamiflu - is there a link?

Roche the maker of the anti-flu drug Tamiflu has reported to authorities in Japan the possible suicides of two teenage boys although the company says there was no clear evidence that the drug had contributed to their deaths.

14 Nov 2005

Grandma was right all along, getting chilly can give you a cold

Welsh researchers have confirmed what your grandma always said was true that getting cold and chilly can give you a cold.

14 Nov 2005

"Luckiest man" - cured of AIDS - will have further tests

The British man thought to be the first person to have shaken off HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is to undergo further clinical tests in the hope of a breakthrough in treating the condition.

14 Nov 2005

Warnings to be put on condoms

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is calling for warnings to be placed on condoms.

14 Nov 2005

Olfactory epithelium plays a critical role in pheromone detection

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have discovered that pheromones essential for mating behavior in mice are recognized by the nose and not by the vomeronasal system, as researchers had long suspected.

14 Nov 2005

New respiratory synctial virus treatment for at-risk infants under study

A new, enhanced-potency onoclonal antibody designed to keep the sniffles from turning into a devasting illness in at-risk babies is under study at the Medical College of Georgia Children's Medical Center.

14 Nov 2005

Why the bird flu virus H5N1 is so deadly to humans

A study published today in the open access journal Respiratory Research reveals that, in human cells, the virus can trigger levels of inflammatory proteins more than 10 times higher than the common human flu virus H1N1.

14 Nov 2005

University of Alberta researchers pioneer gene therapy to restore alveoli and lung capillaries in damaged rat lungs

The good news is that medical advances in perinatal care have allowed us to save many more premature babies. The bad news is they're often at risk of developing bronchopulmonary dysplasia--a chronic lung disease caused by having to place the tiny infants on ventilators and oxygen-rich therapy for acute respiratory failure.

13 Nov 2005