Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Bali hit by bird flu again

There has been another death from bird flu in Bali; this time the victim is a 28-year-old woman.

22 Aug 2007

Fruit bats the culprit in spreading Marburg virus

Scientists have found that fruit bats that roost in caves could be the culprits in the spread of the deadly Marburg virus.

22 Aug 2007

HIV denial in the Internet era

The Internet is serving as a fertile medium for "HIV denialists" to spread false ideas about HIV/AIDS, which could have terrible public health consequences, say scientists in a policy paper in PLoS Medicine.

22 Aug 2007

Flu vaccines more effective when sweetened

Scientists in Australia have discovered a simple way of making flu vaccines much more effective.

21 Aug 2007

Pharmion and MethylGene announce orphan drug designation for treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma

Pharmion Corporation, along with its collaborator MethylGene Inc., today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated the Companies' histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, MGCD0103, as an Orphan Drug for the treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma in the United States.

21 Aug 2007

What's making you fat? - the answer could be a virus!

According to researchers in the U.S. a common virus (adenovirus-36), that causes throat and eye infections may play a part in obesity.

21 Aug 2007

New understanding of how HSV-1 attacks cells

A team of University of Kentucky researchers has identified the roles that herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) proteins play during the invasion of cells and the formation of skin lesions known as cold sores and fever blisters.

17 Aug 2007

Scientists discover new mechanism for viral replication

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a new strategy that Kaposi's Sarcoma Associated Herpesvirus (KSHV) uses to dupe infected cells into replicating its viral genome.

17 Aug 2007

New target for the development of anti-influenza drugs

Scientists at Cure Lab, Inc., a biotechnology company based in Canton, Massachusetts, in collaboration with researchers at Boston University and Harvard Medical School have discovered a potential new target for the development of anti-influenza (flu) drugs, including those that may be effective against potentially pandemic influenza strains like H5N1.

17 Aug 2007

HIV protein both causes brain injury and prevents its repair

New evidence reported in the August issue of Cell Stem Cell, a publication of Cell Press, offers a novel perspective on how the HIV/AIDS virus leads to learning and memory deficits, a condition known as HIV-associated dementia.

17 Aug 2007

Preventing the spread of zoonotic diseases

Instead of attacking wild birds for our new disease problems, a far more cost effective approach should focus on keeping wild animals separate in the places where they often commingle: in wildlife markets and international trade, according to wildlife health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a recent issue of the prestigious Journal of Wildlife Diseases.

17 Aug 2007

Baxter awarded major contract for flu vaccine in the event of a pandemic

Baxter International Inc. has announced that Baxter's European subsidiary in the United Kingdom has entered into an advanced supply agreement with the Department of Health that contains an option to purchase pandemic influenza vaccine in the event the World Health Organization (WHO) declares a pandemic.

From Baxter International Inc. 17 Aug 2007

Immune deficiency linked to squamous cell eye cancer

The incidence of squamous cell eye cancer is greater among kidney transplant patients and people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) than the general public, which suggests the disease is associated with immune deficiency.

16 Aug 2007

HPV vaccine not effective for treating pre-existing HPV infection

For women with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, use of the HPV-16/18 vaccine will not accelerate reduction of the virus and should not be used to treat the infection, according to a study in the August 15 issue of JAMA.

16 Aug 2007

Killer T cell treatment shows promise against cancers in transplant patients

Blood cell donations could be used to treat transplant patients with a particular form of cancer, according to a Cancer Research UK study reported in the journal Blood.

15 Aug 2007

Authorities accused of a cover-up in British foot and mouth scare

The British government has been accused of a cover-up over the foot and mouth outbreak in a research site which houses the government-backed Institute for Animal Health.

14 Aug 2007

Bird flu death in Bali - Australians on alert

Health officials in Indonesia have confirmed the first human death from bird flu in Bali in a village in the north-west district of Jembrana, an area where poultry is known to be affected.

13 Aug 2007

Sanofi pasteur ships doses of Fluzone influenza vaccine for the 2007-2008 season

Sanofi pasteur, the vaccines division of the sanofi-aventis Group, has begun shipment of influenza vaccine (Fluzone, Influenza Virus Vaccine) in the United States for the 2007-2008 season.

13 Aug 2007

Foot and mouth spreads even further in the UK

It now appears that the foot-and-mouth outbreak in England has spread outside the protection zone, dashing any hopes that the disease had been contained.

12 Aug 2007

Scientists prepare for future pandemic strains of H5N1

Preparing vaccines and therapeutics that target a future mutant strain of H5N1 influenza virus sounds like science fiction, but it may be possible, according to a team of scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a collaborator at Emory University School of Medicine.

11 Aug 2007