Word: virologist
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...deputy director of the World Influenza Centre in London, was at a meeting in Germany when he received a call from a co-worker: an influenza outbreak had been reported in Mexico and the first samples of the virus were on their way to London for examination. A virologist who has studied flu for more than 30 years, Daniels knew exactly what he was looking for. Influenza A viruses - the type that can cause pandemics - use a protein called hemagglutinin to bind to the cells of their animal hosts. When a virus jumps from animals to humans, its contagiousness...
...swine flu become resistant to these drugs? Yes, and that's another reason why health officials will want to limit their use to those who have become ill with the disease, according to Hugh Pennington, a virologist at the University of Aberdeen. Resistance occurs when a virus mutates in such a way as to render a drug ineffective. This is more likely to occur when an antiviral is widely used because resistant mutations are more likely to thrive and be passed on. A similar process has led to the widespread existence of antibiotic resistant bacteria such as MRSA...
...unusual evolutionary device, since viruses that are too deadly cannot survive if they kill off their host before being given a chance to spread. "It's fairly common in epidemics to see a trade-off between the ability to cause severe death and transmissibility," says Steven Kleiboeker, a virologist and the chief scientific officer for ViraCor Laboratories. The A/H1N1 virus may be attenuating itself as it spreads from person to person, becoming easier to catch but less dangerous. (Read "CDC Readies Swine-Flu Vaccine...
...bird cases. Equally unusual is that after such a busy month of infections in China, reports of human cases have gone silent. "It's a surprise for me, since in January, the human cases, you have so many, but in February it suddenly stops," says Dr. Guan Yi, a virologist from the University of Hong Kong. (Read "Is Hong Kong's Bird-Flu Vaccine Failing...
...have died of it. Researchers fear that other crises like global warming and the global recession have crowded the virus out of the news. But the disease survives - in the limelight or out of it. "The point is, this virus has not disappeared at all," says Malik Peiris, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. "It kind of dropped off the radar screen of media attention, but the virus itself has increased its spread. It's not only entrenched in Asia, the Middle East, in Egypt, Africa, parts of India and Bangladesh. It's really a problem...