Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Progress seen in some African HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment programs, U.N. Special Envoy says at World Economic Forum on Africa

Several African countries have successfully scaled up their HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs, U.N. Special Envoy for HIV and AIDS in Africa Elizabeth Mataka said during a media briefing at the World Economic Forum on Africa being held in Cape Town, South Africa, the ZANIS/Lusaka Times reports. Zambia and Botswana were among some of the countries that have made significant progress in southern Africa, according to Mataka.

13 Jun 2009

Declaration of H1N1 pandemic to accelerate H1N1 vaccine production

The WHO's decision Thursday to declare H1N1 (swine) flu a pandemic will "speed the production of a vaccine against the new virus," however scientists continue to caution that "it will be fall at the earliest before the first doses are available," the Los Angeles Times reports.

13 Jun 2009

Research supports world blood donor day message on blood safety

Other countries could learn from the mistakes made in UK blood policy concludes research awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council's Michael Young Prize.

13 Jun 2009

Discovery of DNA mutation that occurs at beginning point of T-cell lymphoma

Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) have identified a key mechanism that causes chromosomes within blood cells to break - an occurrence that marks the first step in the development of human lymphoma.

13 Jun 2009

Structure of the HIV protein shell revealed

New research by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and other institutions provides a close-up look at the cone-shaped shell that is the hallmark of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), revealing how it is held together - and possible ways to break it apart.

13 Jun 2009

90 per cent of the world's population won't have access to antivirals in pandemic - generic drugs may help though

Almost 90 per cent of the world's population will not have timely access to affordable supplies of vaccines and antiviral agents in the current influenza pandemic, but it is possible that inexpensive generic drugs that are readily available, even in developing countries, could save millions of lives.

13 Jun 2009

Study shows promise for new cancer-stopping therapy

Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital and Johns Hopkins University have discovered that delivering a small molecule that is highly expressed in normal tissues but lost in diseased cells can result in tumor suppression.

12 Jun 2009

Don't panic because there's a pandemic!

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has officially raised the level of the swine flu alert to 6 - the highest level - and declared the outbreak a pandemic following an emergency meeting.

12 Jun 2009

Women, girls priority in U.S. efforts against global HIV/AIDS, Clinton tells international health experts

In a video address to international HIV/AIDS experts gathered in Namibia for the 2009 HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized the Obama administration's commitment to women and girls in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the AP/Washington Post reports.

11 Jun 2009

National survey looks at HIV/AIDS in South Africa

According to the results of a national survey conducted in 2008 and released Tuesday, HIV prevalence among South Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 dropped from "a high of 10.3 percent in 2005 to 8.7 percent last year, with the decreases most marked among teenagers," AFP/Google.com reports (AFP/Google.com, 6/9).

11 Jun 2009

WHO declares H1N1 virus spread a pandemic

WHO has declared that the spread of the H1N1 (swine) flu virus has reached pandemic level, the AP/Google.com reports (AP/Google.com, 6/11). The Phase 6 pandemic alert indicates that two regions of the world are experiencing significant outbreaks, according to the Wall Street Journal.

11 Jun 2009

The 'hijacking mechanism' of HIV-1 pinpointed

Researchers at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital - along with colleagues at the University of Manitoba and the University of British Columbia - may have found a chink in the armour of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the microorganism which causes AIDS. They have pinpointed the key cellular machinery co-opted by HIV-1 to hijack the human cell for its own benefit.

10 Jun 2009

Spike in Australian H1N1 cases could lead WHO to declare pandemic

The H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak could soon be declared the first flu pandemic in 41 years after a recent jump in the number of confirmed cases in Australia, WHO officials said Tuesday, the AP/Google.com reports (Jordans, AP/Google.com, 6/9).

10 Jun 2009

New York Times examines varying definitions of 'pandemic'

"The new swine influenza virus [H1N1], which appeared suddenly after years of warning about a potential pandemic of avian influenza, upset the WHO's assumptions that most people have the same understanding of the word pandemic," says the New York Times in a report that examines the difficultly health experts have had when attempting to agree upon what constitutes a pandemic.

9 Jun 2009

Sinovac begins production of H1N1 vaccine

Sinovac Biotech Ltd. announced today that it begins the production of a vaccine against influenza A (H1N1) virus. The virus seed was received from U.S. CDC and was delivered to the company on June 8, 2009.

9 Jun 2009

Australia's swine flu alert level may be raised a notch

As Australia's number of confirmed cases of influenza A H1N1 (swine flu) continues to soar - the toll is now 1,211 - there is now the very real possibility that the swine flu alert level will be raised a notch.

9 Jun 2009

Having flu when pregnant increases risk of schizophrenia in offspring

When mothers become infected with influenza during their pregnancy, it may increase the risk for schizophrenia in their offspring. Influenza is a very common virus and so there has been substantial concern about this association. A new study in the June 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier suggests that the observed association depends upon a pre-existing vulnerability in the fetus.

9 Jun 2009

WHO to incorporate disease severity into pandemic alert scale

A meeting of the WHO's emergency committee held Friday to discuss the H1N1 (swine) flu ended without a pandemic declaration, but experts concluded that declarations would now be based upon the severity and transmission pattern of a virus, Reuters reports (Nebehay, Reuters, 6/5). "The Emergency Committee is composed of international experts and its task is to give advice to the WHO chief on influenza outbreak responses," according to Xinhua writes (Xinhua, 6/6).

9 Jun 2009

HCV protease inhibitor telaprevir improves response, halves treatment time for hepatitis C patients

For patients with the most common form of hepatitis C, the addition of a hepatitis C-specific protease inhibitor called telaprevir to the current standard therapy can significantly improve the chances of being cured, and it does it in half the time of standard therapy alone.

5 Jun 2009

Scientists use climate variables and vegetation indices to predict and mitigate Dengue epidemics

Dengue Fever (DF) and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) are the most important vector-borne viral diseases in the World. Around 50-100 million cases appear each year putting 2.5 billion people at risk of suffering this debilitating and sometimes fatal disease.

5 Jun 2009