For the first 60 years of virus discovery, there was no system for classifying viruses. Consequently viruses were named haphazardly, a practice that continues today. Vertebrate viruses may be named according to the associated diseases (poliovirus, rabies), the type of disease caused (murine leukemia virus), or the sites in the ...

Marburg virus has been isolated from Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) living in Kitaka Cave, Uganda, demonstrating that bats are a natural reservoir of the virus. Marburg virus, the founding member of the Filoviridae, is an enveloped virus with a negative-strand RNA genome. Other members of the filovirus family are the ...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would like to know what the public feels about the impending H1N1 influenza vaccination program this fall. The agency plans to conduct ten meetings in different parts of the United States to learn if the public would like a massive vaccination campaign, or ...

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dick Despommier In episode 43 of the podcast "This Week in Virology", Vincent and Dick explain virus classification, and revisit the 1976 swine flu immunization campaign and Guillain-Barre syndrome. [powerpress url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV043.mp3"] Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #43 (32 MB .mp3, ...

A few weeks ago I asked readers to find the errors in the following statement concerning an experimental influenza vaccine produced by Protein Sciences which involves synthesis of the viral HA protein in insect cells. They warned that the virus could mutate during the southern hemisphere's flu season before returning north ...