Nearly 3% of the world’s population – about 175,000,000 individuals – are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), and 3-4 million new infections are added each year. A high percentage of these become life long, chronic infections, which may lead to cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, and death. No vaccine is available, and the only antiviral treatment, …
On This Week in Virology #18, Vincent, Dick, and Alan discuss adenovirus type 36 and obesity, new influenza antiviral drugs, viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus of fish, and Ebola virus in pigs and pig farmers in the Phillipines. Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #18
The success in treating AIDS with multiple combinations of three antiviral drugs is a model for the successful management of viral resistance. Can we expect that a deep arsenal of anti-influenza virus drugs will be developed? So far we have three antiviral drugs against influenza viruses. Most H3N2 strains are resistant to rimantidine, which targets …
Vaccines have provided considerable success in preventing viral disease, but they have modest or no therapeutic effect for individuals who are already infected. Consequently, our second arm of antiviral defense has been the development and use of antiviral drugs: they can stop an infection once it has started. However, despite 50 years of research, our arsenal of antiviral drugs is dangerously …
