The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of a single pill containing two different antiviral drugs for the treatment for hepatitis C. It is the first combination pill approved for the disease, and also the first treatment that does not contain interferon or ribavirin. The new hepatitis C drug, ...

I cannot pass up the opportunity to point out this wonderful quote by Ginia Ballafante in her NY Times piece, Fear of Vaccines Goes Viral. The article starts by noting an article on plummeting vaccination rates in Los Angeles: The piece had the virtue of offering New Yorkers yet another opportunity ...

On episode #306 of the science show This Week in Virology, the Grand Masters of the TWiV discuss Ebola virus transmission, air travel from West Africa, Ebola virus infectivity on surfaces, the Dallas Ebola virus patient, and Ebola virus in dogs. You can find TWiV #306 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.

The Liberian man who was diagnosed with Ebola virus infection after traveling to Dallas, Texas, was treated with an antiviral drug called brincidofovir. This drug had originally been developed to treat infections with DNA-containing viruses. Why was it used to treat an Ebola virus infection? Brincidofovir (illustrated) is a modified ...

Poliovirus by Jason Roberts Vaccine-associated poliomyelitis caused by the oral poliovirus vaccine is rare, but its occurrence in a healthy, immunocompetent 6-month old child was highly unusual because the child had been previously immunized with two doses of the injected, inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV). The three poliovirus vaccine strains developed by Albert ...