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We've all heard the myths and hypotheses about the origins of the epidemic caused by the HI virus, but a new book, “Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It”, sheds more light on where it all began.
I've covered this before, but it's a nice review - complete with spoilers like how Beatrice Hahn and team have shown that a chimpanzee SIV from Cameroon is the closest relative of HIV-1 group M viruses. The gun doesn't smoke more than that. 
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From
9thlevel
“On April 27th, after much toing and froing, the Dutch government gave Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam permission to submit his paper on bird flu to Science."
And so it FINALLY comes to pass - two papers that SHOULD have been published weeks ago, will see the light. Graphic by Russell Kightley Media
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"Dr. Millman also helped create a test for hepatitis B that substantially reduced the risk of infection from blood transfusions. Hepatitis B is one of five viruses known to cause liver inflammation; it can lead to cancer. By some estimates, more than 350 million people are carriers, especially in Asia and Africa. The virus spreads as H.I.V. does — via blood, semen and other bodily fluids — but is more infectious."
The first virus-like particle vaccine - albeit non-recombinant, because it was purified from plasma obtained from infected people.
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“The animal actually makes the vaccine inside its body by producing the FMD protein necessary to create an immune response,” Dr. Rodriguez said, according to the BBC. “It’s a very good innovation – the most effective way to date and very promising technology. I think it’s going to revolutionize the way we look at FMD vaccines around the world today.”
So a DNA vaccine, then? Hardly revolutionary - but ANYTHING that changes the primitive attitude governments have to the use of FMDV vaccines is to be welcomed.
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This article is published in partnership with the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD) as part of our joint series on STD Awareness.
No, but I'm happy to spread the word!
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![An examination of the bacteriophages and bacteri... [J Microbiol. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI | Virology News | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/73Teglmc7Ihls6XQWDaZazl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
"Bacteria and their viruses (called bacteriophages, or phages), have been found in virtually every ecological niche on Earth. Arid regions, including their most extreme form called deserts, represent the single largest ecosystem type on the Earth's terrestrial surface. The Namib desert is believed to be the oldest (80 million years) desert. We report here an initial analysis of bacteriophages isolated from the Namib desert using a combination of electron microscopy and genomic approaches. The virus-like particles observed by electron microscopy revealed 20 seemingly different phage-like morphologies and sizes belonging to the Myoviridae and Siphoviridae families of tailed phages. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis revealed a majority of phage genomes of 55-65 kb in length, with genomes of approximately 200, 300, and 350 kb also observable. Sample sequencing of cloned phage DNA fragments revealed that approximately 50% appeared to be of bacterial origin. Of the remaining DNA sequences, approximately 50% displayed no significant match to any sequence in the databases. The majority of the 16S rDNA sequences amplified from DNA extracted from the sand displayed considerable (94-98%) homology to members of the Firmicutes, and in particular to members of the genus Bacillus, though members of the Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes, Chloroflexi, and delta-Proteobacteria groups were also observed."
This serves as a neat, if slightly dated, little introduction to my latest endeavour - and an account of a field trip this last week into the Namib Desert. I was fortunate enough some time ago to have been invited by Don Cowan, presently of University of Pretoria, to accompany his team to the Gobabeb Research Station inland of Walvis Bay, in Namibia's Namib Desert. They work on extremophiles, and the Namib is a great environment for mining bugs that can withstand high salt and temperatures and severe desiccation - oh, and photosynthesise underground, hiding under semi-tranlucent quartz rocks embedded in the surface soil. The thinking was that, given my long-time interest in viral diversity and newly-acquired means to do oceanic viromics, I would be interested and even of some help. And so it has come to pass: I will have my very own hypolith (=rock-colonising blue-green algae) scrapings and the result of diafiltration and concentration of washings of a good few kilos of red dune sand to play with as far as virus genome sequencing and even EM and analytical centrifugation go. We will have fun in the coming months...that, and we will obviously HAVE to go back to Gobabeb, to further investigate whatever it is we find. A terrible, harsh place, but SOMEONE has to go there...so I'll take the pain. B-) Phage graphic courtesy of Russell Kightley Media
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"Last year was the worst year for measles in the U.S. in 15 years, health officials said Thursday. There were 222 cases of measles, a large jump from the 60 or so seen in a typical year. Most of the cases last year were imported -- either by foreign visitors or by U.S. residents who picked up the virus overseas. U.S. children have been getting vaccinated against the measles for about 50 years. But low vaccination rates in Europe and other places resulted in large outbreaks overseas last year. So far this year, 27 U.S. cases have been reported and it's too early to gauge whether 2012 will be as bad as last year. But with large international events like the London Olympics coming up, health officials are urging everyone -- particularly international travelers -- to make sure they're fully vaccinated."
And so it begins...the collapse of what used to be near-universal anti-measles vaccination, resulting in re-importation of the virus to places where it had almost been eradicated.
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Usutu virus (USUV) is an African mosquito-borne flavivirus, member of the Japanese encephalitis antigenic group. This avian virus is transmitted by arthropod vectors (mainly mosquitoes of the Culex pipiens complex). It is well known that free-living birds, including migratory species, have the potential to disperse certain pathogenic microorganisms. Usutu virus has recently been introduced to Europe and is spreading through Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, causing disease in birds and humans. Like West Nile virus, USUV may become a resident pathogen in Europe and the consequences for public health should be considered. Many different biotic and abiotic factors affect the survival of the virus in a new environment and influence the efficiency of its geographical dispersal
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Capital FM KenyaKenyans to get cheaper HIV drugsCapital FM KenyaNAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 20 – People living with HIV/AIDS will now be able to access affordable drugs after the High Court outlawed sections of the law that bar importation or manufacture...
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A recent paper describing the engineering of stem cells to generate HIV-specific CD8 T cells has drawn considerable media attention and, regrettably but not untypically, many of the stories are profoundly misleading.
Reality check: leave the hype at the door....
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"I have just created an animation of a rotating influenza virus. The sequence begins with a still of the cutaway virus with various parts labelled. The labels disappear and the virus rotates, then returns to the starting graphic. This is in high definition and looks good full screen on a 27" iMac. It is the latest addition to my YouTube Channel."
Definitely, graphics courtesy of Russell Kightley Media...B-) STRONGLY commended!
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Improved immune response to 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine in HIV-infected adults: clinical trials... Conclusion. Increasing the HA dose of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine improves the vaccine’s immunogenicity in HIV-infected individuals.
Well, I should hope so...! Seriously, though, good news for the HIV-infected.
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David Goodhue - AHN News Reporter Cambridge, United Kingdom (AHN) - Researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh developed genetically-modified chickens that cannot spread the bird flu.
GM chickens eating GM grain to be eaten by people who are GM to prevent HIV infection...hey, one can dream! Bird flu image courtesy Russell Kightley Media
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CIO TodayReligious sites 'riskier than porn for viruses'NinemsnWeb wanderers are more likely to get a computer virus by visiting a religious website than by peering at porn, according to a study released on Tuesday.
I love it: Dawkins was right! Religion IS a virus....
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"It’s finally out. After months of will-they-won’t they and should-they-shouldn’t-they deliberations, Nature has finally published a paper about a mutant strain of bird flu that can spread between mammals."
This is the Kawaoka paper, which in fact was the LESS contentious one. Ed Yong in Discover magazine comes up with four important themes from the paper, which to my mind show we were right to agitate and demand that the material be published.
One: H5N1 can evolve to spread between mammals with worrying ease Two: There appear to be two traits that make for a transmissible virus – specificity and stability. Three: It’s not the mutations that matter, but what they do. Or, don’t miss the wood for the trees. Four: Wild viruses are almost there.
One and four are the important points: flu viruses can evolve quickly and easily, and wild H5N1 is nearly at the point that it will leap into mammals. The virus is endemic in several countries, like Indonesia, where wild birds, tame birds, pigs and people rub shoulders on a daily basis: this is a natural melting pot for influenza virus reassortment and adaptation, that may at any moment see a pandemic virus burst out. Or not - it may as easily be a H7NX virus that will be The Big One. But it is as well to be prepared - and censorship wasn't going to allow that. Thanks @AJCann for alerting me to this.
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"A classified briefing from U.S. intelligence officials helped persuade a majority of members of a government advisory board that the benefits of publishing two controversial H5N1 avian influenza studies outweighed the risks, according to testimony presented yesterday at a U.S. Senate hearing. The late March briefing to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) left "the impression that the risk of misuse did not appreciably increase with full publication and there is a high likelihood of undesirable political consequences to not publishing," microbiologist Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, acting chair of NSABB, told the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs."
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From
www
"Influenza A virus possesses a segmented genome of eight negative-sense, single-stranded RNAs. The eight segments have been shown to be represented in approximately equal molar ratios in a virus population; however, the exact copy number of each viral RNA segment per individual virus particles has not been determined. We have established an experimental approach based on multicolor single-molecule fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) to study the composition of viral RNAs at single-virus particle resolution. Colocalization analysis showed that a high percentage of virus particles package all eight different segments of viral RNAs. To determine the copy number of each RNA segment within individual virus particles, we measured the photobleaching steps of individual virus particles hybridized with fluorescent probes targeting a specific viral RNA. By comparing the photobleaching profiles of probes against the HA RNA segment for the wild-type influenza A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (PR8) and a recombinant PR8 virus carrying two copies of the HA segment, we concluded that only one copy of HA segment is packaged into a wild type virus particle. Our results showed similar photobleaching behaviors for other RNA segments, suggesting that for the majority of the virus particles, only one copy of each RNA segment is packaged into one virus particle. Together, our results support that the packaging of influenza viral genome is a selective process."
Influenza virus cutaway by Russell Kightley Media
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From
www
Government ministers representing 24 African countries have officially endorsed the use of biotechnology to address the persistent food insecurity and poverty across the continent. The landmark declaration was made during the 2nd Annual Dialogue of Ministers of Agriculture, Science and Technology held under the auspices of the Government of Ghana and Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), on 18-19 April, 2012. The forum is primarily convened to share ideas and agree on collective actions towards enhancing agricultural productivity in Africa. The joint declaration was made through a joint communiqué signed by all delegates at the end of the meeting. Another significant resolution at the forum was the call for the establishment of an Innovation Fund for Agricultural Transformation (IFAT) to generate funds for all stakeholders within the agricultural value chain with an added advantage of insurance to the farmers.
Showing the way...!
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Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) differ from typical retroviruses in being inherited through the host germline and therefore are a unique combination of pathogen and selfish genetic element. Some ERV lineages proliferate by infecting germline cells, as do typical retroviruses, whereas others lack the env gene required for virions to enter cells and thus behave like retrotransposons. We wished to know what factors determined the relative abundance of different ERV lineages, so we analyzed ERV loci recovered from 38 mammal genomes by in silico screening. By modeling the relationship between proliferation and replication mechanism in detail within one group, the intracisternal A-type particles (IAPs), and performing simple correlations across all ERV lineages, we show that when ERVs lose the env gene their proliferation within that genome is boosted by a factor of ∼30. We also show that ERV abundance follows the Pareto principle or 20/80 rule, with ∼20% of lineages containing 80% of the loci. This rule is observed in many biological systems, including infectious disease epidemics, where commonly ∼20% of the infected individuals are responsible for 80% of onward infection. We thus borrow simple epidemiological and ecological models and show that retrotransposition and loss of env is the trait that leads endogenous retroviruses to becoming genomic superspreaders that take over a significant proportion of their host's genome.
I love it: retroviruses that choose to spread WITHIN a cell's genome, rather than between cells. Safe little niche, as long as it keeps dividing!
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![Vietnam's new war: Incurable mystery virus [=EV71] kills 19 kids to date — RT | Virology News | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/f3P1FhbOWzfHo4P1eOPGGDl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
From
rt
"Hanoi has asked the World Health Organization for help to cure a virulent disease affecting children. Symptoms include blistering on hands, feet and mouths accompanied by high fever and eventual organ failure. Nineteen children died from the illness in 2011 alone.
The virus is EV71, a picornavirus similar to the polioviruses and hepatitis A virus - so hardly a "mystery virus". There are also a number of vaccines in the pipeline for the disease, including one highlighted here a while ago.
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Germany's blackbirds are at risk from a new outbreak of a deadly virus this summer, experts have warned, after finding it in mosquitoes that have survived the winter. The Usutu virus was blamed for the deaths of many blackbirds last year, although it was only positively tested in 72 bird cadavers. The Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI) in Hamburg called on Thursday for members of the public to keep their eyes open for dead blackbirds over the coming months and to report or even collect them.
Bye-bye blackbird...B-) (sorry)
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A TOURISM expert has warned that the failure to adequately resolve the entry restrictions imposed on Zambians travelling to South Africa over the yellow fever vaccination certificates will adversely affect the hosting of the United Nations World Tourism general assembly in Livingstone next year.
And from my homeland, allegations of tourism sabotage!!
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Viruses are known to be the most abundant organisms on earth, yet little is known about their collective origin and evolutionary history. With exceptionally high rates of genetic mutation and mosaicism, it is not currently possible to resolve deep evolutionary histories of the known major virus groups. Metagenomics offers a potential means of establishing a more comprehensive view of viral evolution as vast amounts of new sequence data becomes available for comparative analysis. Bioinformatic analysis of viral metagenomic sequences derived from a hot, acidic lake revealed a circular, putatively single-stranded DNA virus encoding a major capsid protein similar to those found only in single-stranded RNA viruses. The presence and circular configuration of the complete virus genome was confirmed by inverse PCR amplification from native DNA extracted from lake sediment. The virus genome appears to be the result of a RNA-DNA recombination event between two ostensibly unrelated virus groups.
Not the first time this is postulated to have happened, although the authors do cite the first one: Gibbs and Weiller, 1999.
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A once-a-day pill to help prevent HIV infection could significantly reduce the spread of AIDS, but only makes economic sense if used in select, high-risk groups, Stanford University researchers conclude in a new study. The researchers looked at the cost-effectiveness of the combination drug tenofovir-emtricitabine, which was found in a landmark 2010 trial to reduce an individual's risk of HIV infection by 44 percent when taken daily. Patients who were particularly faithful about taking the drug reduced their risk to an even greater extent - by 73 percent.
This is the way we will stop the HIV pandemic: one brick at a time, each effect incremental....
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"HCPro, the RNA silencing suppressor (RSS) of viruses belonging to the Potyvirus genus in the Potyviridae family, is a multifunctional protein presumably involved in all essential steps of the viral infection cycle. Recent studies have shown that Plum pox potyvirus (PPV) HCPro can be successfully replaced by Cucumber vein yellowing ipomovirus P1b, a sequence unrelated RSS from a virus of the same family. In order to gain insight into the requirement of a particular RSS to establish a successful potyviral infection, we tested the ability of different heterologous RSSs from both plant- and animal-infecting viruses to substitute HCPro. Making use of engineered PPV chimeras, we show that PPV HCPro can be functionally replaced by some, but not all, unrelated RSSs, including the NS1 protein of the mammalian-infecting Influenza A virus."
Fascinating stuff: shows how promiscuois, or possibly how universal, the machinery for avoiding silencing is - and how funadamental to the life cycles of viruses. One could almost argue "virus altruism"?
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