Bats have been the reservoir for recent disease outbreaks, including SARS and the current COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s human activity that allows the virus to cross over.
No, this person is not creating a deadly virus.
CDC / Unsplash
The conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was created in a laboratory has been widely reported, yet there is no evidence to support it. Why such theories thrive can easily be explained, however.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria (coloured yellow) enmeshed within a human white blood cell (coloured red). MRSA is a major cause of hospital-associated infections.
(NIAID)
Antimicrobial resistance is a public health and economic disaster waiting to happen. If we do not address this threat, by 2050 more people will die from drug-resistant infections than from cancer.
A staffer works on a ventilator-refurbishing assembly line at Bloom Energy in Sunnyvale, Calif. Bloom Energy makes hydrogen fuel cells but is now refurbishing old ventilators so hospitals can use them to treat coronavirus patients.
(Beth LaBerge/KQED via AP)
Since the pandemic began, the new coronavirus has infected more than 780,000 people and killed at least 37,000. The experts at The Conversation offer its readers insights from every continent.
Health care systems around the world are ramping up their response to the spread of COVID-19, like this hospital in Washington state.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Nevan Krogan, University of California, San Francisco
Among the more than 20,000 drugs approved by the FDA, there may be some that can treat COVID-19. A team at the University of California, San Francisco, is identifying possible candidates.
The origin of the Covid-19 virus is still unclear: a cave, the forest…
Michal Ico/Unsplash
The SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic is undergoing extensive genetic analysis around the world to understand its origin and evolution.
Currently, the number of confirmed global COVID-19 cases is doubling about every six days. At this rate, Australia’s health sector will be unable to cope.
Researchers Tian Xia and Zijie Lin test a plasma prototype for preventing airborne transmission of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus at a Michigan pig farm.
Robert Coelius/Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing
Viruses are small enough to pass through filters, including face masks. Disabling viruses with electrically charged gases could be a better way to curb airborne transmission.
There’s no evidence you can spread the Wuhan coronavirus before showing symptoms, but one study suggests it’s possible for children and young people to be infectious without ever having symptoms.
All the cases so far are among people who have recently arrived from China.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Four people in Australia have tested positive to the Wuhan coronavirus so far. So how does it spread, who is most at risk, and what is Australia doing to reduce transmission?
Industrial vaccine production has enabled mass vaccination campaigns that have reduced infectious diseases.
Shutterstock
The flu vaccine is built on the strains expected to circulate in a given year. While the majority of strains circulating this year are matched in the vaccine, there’s one strain we didn’t predict.
The flu comes on rapidly and symptoms get worse over the first few days.
Shutterstock
Sheena G. Sullivan, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza and Rob Moss, The University of Melbourne
The 2018 flu season was mild, while 2017 was a particularly bad year. It’s impossible to predict what the 2019 flu season has in store, but we’ve seen more cases so far this year than usual.
What goes up must come down, and that includes the protection the flu vaccine offers against influenza.
Irina Bg/Shutterstock
Ian Barr, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza
Protection wanes after four or five months, so for most people, it makes sense to get a flu shot in mid to late May or early June so you’re protected when the flu season peaks in August or September.
We need a community conversation about balancing the trade-offs.
Natalia Deriabina/Shutterstock
Australia’s college of obstetricians has warned pregnant women against kissing their toddlers on the mouth or sharing food because of the risk of cytomegalovirus (CMV). But is this advice useful?
Associate Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Affiliate Associate Professor of Genome Sciences and Microbiology, University of Washington