Virology News

The history books will tell you that it was only in 1933 that Influenza A virus was shown to BE a virus - yet there appears to me to be very clear evidence that French scientists working in 1918 actually made the first call.  From "Quelques notions experimentales sur le virus de la grippe", by MM Charles Nicolle and Charles Lebailly in Annales de l'Institut Pasteur of 1918:

Conclusions

1⁰ The bronchial expectoration of people suffering from influenza, collected during the acute period, is virulent.
2⁰ The monkey (M. cynomolgus) is sensitive to the virus by sub-conjunctival and nasal inoculation.
3⁰ The influenza agent is a filterable organism. The inoculation of the filtrate has indeed reproduced the illness in two of the people injected subcutaneously; on the other hand when given intravenously it appears to be ineffective (two failures out of two tries).
4⁰ It is possible that the flu virus does not occur in the patient’s blood. The blood of a monkey with flu, inoculated subcutaneously, did not infect man; the negative blood result of subject 2 at D, is however, not convincing, the blood route seeming to be ineffective for the flu virus transmission.

(Translated by Mrs Francoise Williamson)

It convinced me.  But, as my medical colleagues will be quick to tell you, I'm an amateur in this area.  Albeit an enthusiastic one...B-)

Picture courtesy of Russell Kightley Media

The presentation covered:

Phase I/II randomized, double blind, multi-center, placebo-controlled safety and efficacy study designed to evaluate the norovirus monovalent GI.1 VLP vaccine versus placebo

Results from the Norovirus vaccine proof-of-concept, multi-center challenge study

Ongoing clinical study of an intramuscular bivalent formulation of norovirus vaccine candidate

Of course, they don't mention you can make it in plants too....

Using the self-controlled case series design we examined 271,495 12 month vaccinations and 184,312 18 month vaccinations to examine the relative incidence of the composite endpoint of emergency room visits or hospital admissions in consecutive one day intervals following vaccination....

There are significantly elevated risks of primarily emergency room visits approximately one to two weeks following 12 and 18 month vaccination.

HOWEVER [Ed]:

Given the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine in eliminating both measles and rubella, and the highly infectious nature of these diseases, high vaccination coverage is essential. The diseases that the vaccines are preventing are not benign and vaccination can eliminate many of the serious sequelae of these infections [20]. Complications from measles include otitis media (7–9% of cases), pneumonia (1–6% of cases), encephalitis (1 per 1,000–2,000 cases), subacute sclerosing panecephalitis (1 per 100,000 cases), and death (1 per 3000 cases) [3], [21]. Further studies attempting to predict which children develop post-vaccination reactions, as well as determining the effectiveness of prophylactic treatment with antipyrectics prior to the high risk period for symptom development are warranted.

by Merry Youle

It’s true! Each year it rains viruses, more than a trillion of them per acre over thousands of forested acres in the USA.

Imagine that: they'll be spraying live bacteria next...oh, wait!  They do!!

Even if a 59% mortality rate for H5N1 is too high, the virus could still cause a flu pandemic more serious than that of 1918.

Washington, Feb 13 (IANS) A protein knocks out the most virulent form of HIV by starving it of the raw materials it needs to reproduce, in order to protect our immune cells, a study reveals.

...and this may be relevant for other viruses, like herpesviruses...

Scientists from the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp University Hospital and Antwerp University have tested a new 'therapeutic vaccine' against HIV on volunteers.

The next wave of HIV vaccines: we have so many HIV-infected people alive because of ARVs, that other interventions are starting to be seriously trialled.

In its effort to eradicate the deadly Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) in animals by 2030, India has joined hands with the US to jointly develop a new-age single-shot vaccine.

...the new recombinant clone adenovirus virus base vaccine will be sturdier, require less cold storage and be more effective than the present vaccine.

THE SWINE flu vaccine has topped the list of drugs responsible for the largest number of suspected adverse reactions, new figures show.

...followed by (in third place) the HPV vaccine, then other childhood vaccines.  But "Most of these were relatively mild, such as localised swelling, gastrointestinal problems and flu-like symptoms."