by Gertrud U. Rey In 1988 the World Health Organization, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention passed the initiative to eradicate polio globally by the year 2000. We are now 23 years past this deadline, and it is increasingly clear that this goal will likely never be achieved. Smallpox …
After infection with poliovirus, only about 1% of individuals develop paralysis. I have always wondered whether genetic polymorphisms underlie the rarity of this disease outcome. The results of study carried out in Denmark provide the first insights.
Host behavior alteration by viruses is known to assist the development of another organism. An example is a parasitoid wasp that injects viruses along with eggs into a caterpillar. The viral genomes encode proteins that subvert the caterpillar immune response, allowing the wasp larva to develop. A similar strategy may enable safe development of a …
Evidence is mounting that Zika virus is neurotropic (able to infect cells of the nervous system) and neurovirulent (causes disease of the nervous system) in humans. The most recent evidence comes from a case report of an 81 year old French man who developed meninogoencephalitis 10 days after returning from a 4 week cruise to …
On episode #331 of the science show This Week in Virology, the TWiV team discusses the possible association of the respiratory pathogen enterovirus D68 with neurological disease. You can find TWiV #331 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
An outbreak of respiratory disease caused by enterovirus D68 began in August of this year with clusters of cases in Missouri and Illinois. Since then 691 infections have been confirmed in 46 states in the US. The number of confirmed infections is likely to increase in the coming weeks, as CDC has developed a more rapid diagnostic …
