On episode #28 of the podcast "This Week in Virology", Vincent, Dick, Alan, and Eric F. Donaldson discuss a new test for influenza H5N1, poliovirus in Minnesota, Koala retrovirus, batteries made from viruses, and SARS. Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #28 or subscribe in ...

Poliovirus has been isolated from a patient who died last month in Minnesota. Is this incident related to the outbreak of polio in an Amish community in the same state four years ago? Here are the facts about this case that have been released by the Minnesota Department of Health: ...

Last week the US Food and Drug Administration approved a rapid test for determining whether a person is infected with an H5N1 subtype of influenza virus. Why is it better than previously available influenza diagnostic assays? The format of the new assay, according to its developer, ArborVita, "is the familiar ...

The many human viral diseases that have crossed from other animal species  - such as AIDS, Ebola, SARS, encephalitis and respiratory diesease caused by henipaviruses - demonstrate the pathogenic potential of the zoonotic pool. Are there also reverse zoonoses - diseases of humans that are transferred to other animal species? ...

None of the four human polymaviruses that were known in early 2008 - JC, BK, KI and WU - had been shown to cause cancer. The subsequent identification of a new polyomavirus associated with Merkel cell carcinoma demonstrates the type of evidence that is required to prove that a virus ...