It doesn’t just seem like the world is experiencing more viral infections than before – it’s a reality. And the way humans live today helps viruses thrive.
A clinical trial currently underway in France could confirm that that HIV treatment can be safely reduced to just four days a week, while maintaining the same efficacy.
To finish, or not to finish, your course of antibiotics? There’s little doubt that you shouldn’t stop midstream.
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New reports that stopping antibiotics when you feel better is better for you could do more harm than good. But it has reopened the debate on how long antibiotics should be used.
What can a single person’s flu infection tell you about how the virus changes around the world?
Xue and Bloom
Benjamin Cowie, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Hepatitis A, B, C, D and E are very different viruses. Hepatitis A is genetically closer to the common cold than it is to hepatitis B. Hepatitis C is closer to the virus that causes dengue fever.
A virus is essentially an information system (encoded in DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protective coat.
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The immune system protects us from the constant onslaught of viruses, bacteria and other types of pathogens we encounter throughout life. But it can sometimes misbehave.
Children in particular experience a multitude of viral illnesses during their early years.
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Viruses cause all kinds of infections from relatively mild cases of the flu to deadly outbreaks of Ebola. Clearly, not all viruses are equal and one of these differences is when you can infect others.
Viral mutation, or ‘genetic drift’, could impact the viability of some drugs being developed to combat Ebola.
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Scientists around the world are trying to develop effective treatments for Ebola infection. But a process of viral mutation, known as “genetic drift”, could potentially compromise their efforts.
Only a small proportion of people who eat these berries will become infected.
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Food distributor Patties Foods has recalled two brands of frozen mixed berries — Nanna’s and Creative Gourmet — due to reports of three people in Victoria, four in Queensland and two in New South Wales…
The extent to which our personalities determine aspects of our lives and health has increasingly been the subject of research over the last few years. There was the suggestion, for example, that being…
Symptoms can occur as soon as 30 minutes after exposure to the culprit organism or toxin.
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We’ve all experienced the abdominal cramps and the urge to get to a toilet – quickly! When the stomach and intestinal tract become inflamed, our bodies respond with the sudden onset of diarrhoea, associated…
You may have seen recently that scientists recovered and “revived” a giant virus from Siberian permafrost (frozen soil) that dates back 30,000 years. The researchers raised concerns that drilling in the…
Some Indigenous groups have been found to be particularly vulnerable to new strain of influenza (H7N9) currently found in…
A primary carrier of the Chikungunya virus, the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) could easily hop to mainland Australia from Torres Strait islands.
Camponotus Vagus
Chikungunya is a virus transmitted to people by mosquitoes; it usually causes a non-fatal but debilitating illness. Despite thousands of people being infected each year in Africa, Asia and Melanesia, chikungunya…
Associate Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Affiliate Associate Professor of Genome Sciences and Microbiology, University of Washington