The Other Side of Virology: Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic
Dengue virus: Urgency in our warming world
Why is this important? In the summer of 2023, Mexico and countries in Central America and the Caribbean were in the news because of extensive outbreaks of the mosquito-borne dengue virus (DENV) (1). These outbreaks were at least partially weather-related: Warmer temperatures exacerbated by El Niño and global warming are linked to heavier-than-normal precipitation…
Read MoreMultiple Sclerosis: How is it Associated with Epstein-Barr Virus?
In the past, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) has been associated with many virus infections. But causation has been hard to establish for any specific virus. The association to Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) comes from a recent study involving a large military cohort (> 10 million adults) in which there were 955 cases of MS. The risk of…
Read MoreExploring the Mystery of Acute Pediatric Non-A-E Hepatitis
Recent outbreaks of non-A, -B, -C, -D, or -E hepatitis among young children have presented epidemiologists with a mystery. The hepatitis cases tended to be severe, leading in many cases to liver transplantation. But, in searching for an infectious origin, one group of researchers detected in many of these hepatitis cases a prominent cause of…
Read MoreMarburg Virus Disease: Another Filovirus Zoonosis
Recently, Marburg Virus Disease (MVD), Ebola’s equally deadly cousin, emerged in Tanzania and in at least three separate locations in Equatorial Guinea. The two countries are on opposite sides of Africa’s coast and separated by thousands of kilometers, but both are in the range of Egyptian fruit bats. The bats are the natural hosts for…
Read MoreWhy Worry About Avian Flu?
The Covid pandemic is the latest concern regarding potential zoonotic spillover of a dangerous virus. What will actually be the next virus? In the game of spillover roulette, some have put their bets on yet another coronavirus. Lately, however, the smart money seems to be betting on avian flu, or more specifically, H5N1 avian flu.…
Read MoreEbola in Uganda
A moderate sized Ebola outbreak (142 confirmed cases) in Uganda has recently been in the news. Fifty-five people died; the others recovered. It has now largely been controlled, but there are some issues associated with the outbreak that are worth considering. These relate to conventional control by contact tracing and isolation (which was how it…
Read MoreFlu Vaccines: What Does the Future Hold?
Omicron spinoffs, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and influenza (flu) viruses have formed a sort of unholy trinity of respiratory infections. Covid vaccines were initially highly effective against infection, hospitalization, and death, but with the multiplication of new variants, only strong protection against hospitalization and death remains. In a previous Perspective (https://gvn.org/respiratory-syncytial-virus-newly-resurgent/), we noted that the…
Read MoreLassa fever vaccine development: Where are we?
Joseph Anejo-Okopi, PhD1,2. 1Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Federal University of Health Sciences Otukpo, Nigeria. 2AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria, Jos University Teaching Hospital, Jos, Nigeria Email Address: [email protected], [email protected], December 5, 2022 Introduction Lassa virus (LASV) causes acute viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) called Lassa fever (LF) that is endemic to West Africa (Nigeria,…
Read MoreRespiratory Syncytial Virus: Newly Resurgent
December 5, 2022 Introduction We seem to be in a sort of Golden Age of respiratory viruses, including flu, SARS-CoV2 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV is an enveloped negative strand RNA virus with a genome of approximately 15,000 nucleotides encoding 11 proteins. There are two serotypes, A and B, which can be discriminated by…
Read MoreGlobal Outbreaks of Monkeypox
May 25, 2022Â INTRODUCTION WHO and other health organizations are alarmed at the recent global outbreak of monkeypox. As of May 21, 2022, more than 80 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in at least 12 countries outside of Africa (1). The first case of the disease in the UK was reported on May 7,…
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