The first episode of my new netcast, This Week in Virology – TWiV – has been posted. It’s at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #1
In this episode, Dick Despommier and I talk about West Nile Virus.
I hope to continue TWiV on a weekly basis. Next topic for 26 September: polio.
I have been listening to your podcast recently and I found it interesting in the polio podcast that you said that smallpox is the only virus that has been eradicated. I find this interesting, since I have seen smallpox in the last five years. Specifically, when I was in Afghanistan, there was a boy that I cam into contact with that had what appeared to be smallpox. Are there still areas in the world where the smallpox virus is present?
Jeremy,
There are no areas of the world with smallpox – the disease was
eradicated in 1979. However, it would be incorrect to say that the
virus is not present – the US and Russian have known stocks of the
virus. Furthermore, it has been speculated that stockpiles of the
virus, produced by the USSR as part of its bioweapons program, must be
somewhere in the world.
I doubt that what you saw in Afghanistan was a case of smallpox –
possibly another rash disease.
I find this interesting, since I have seen smallpox in the last five years. Specifically, when I was in Afghanistan, there was a boy that I cam into contact with that had what appeared to be smallpox.
I find this interesting, since I have seen smallpox in the last five years. Specifically, when I was in Afghanistan, there was a boy that I cam into contact with that had what appeared to be smallpox.