Virology News

HPV-Related Head, Neck Cancers on the Rise...

The incidence of head and neck cancers related to the human papillomavirus (HPV) is rising in the United States, with the greatest increase among middle-aged white men, a new study finds.

Tobacco and alcohol are the leading risk factors for head and neck cancers, but the sexually transmitted infection HPV is becoming an important risk factor as well, according to researchers from the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans.

For the study, Edward Peters, associate professor and director of the epidemiology program at the university's School of Public Health, and colleagues analyzed data from 40 U.S. cancer registries from 1995 to 2005 and found a significant overall increase in head and neck cancers in areas of the body strongly associated with HPV infection, and a significant decline in head and neck cancers in sites not associated with the virus.

The three sites associated with HPV infection are the tonsil, the base of the tongue and lingual tonsil, and parts of the oropharynx, according to the report published online March 20 in the journal PLoS One.

Just when you thought you were safely past the HPV cancer hurdle....

Conclusion:

Therapy with oral oseltamivir and inhaled zanamivir may provide a net benefit over no treatment of influenza. However, as with the randomized trials, the confidence in the estimates of the effects for decision making is low to very low.

Ray Suarez speaks with authors Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin about how "shadows of colonialism" hang over the spread of HIV from Africa.

Since AIDS was first identified in the West 30 years ago, its toll across the world has been vicious. It's killed 25 people since 1981. An estimated 34 million are living with the virus today.

Just how the disease began and spread perplexed scientists for years. A new book tracks the emergence of the HIV virus out of a remote part of Cameroon to what is now Kinshasa in the former Belgian Congo. "Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It" connects the economies and atrocities of colonialism to that initial outbreak and to current medical approaches to the treatment and prevention of HIV in Africa.

In this report we demonstrate that E.coli expressed Tre-recombinases, tagged either with the protein transduction domain (PTD) from the HIV-1 Tat trans-activator or the translocation motif (TLM) of the Hepatitis B virus PreS2 protein, were able to translocate efficiently into cells and showed significant recombination activity on HIV-1 LTR sequences. Tre activity was observed using episomal and stable integrated reporter constructs in transfected HeLa cells. Furthermore, the TLM-tagged enzyme was able to excise the full-length proviral DNA from chromosomal integration sites of HIV-1-infected HeLa and CEM-SS cells. The presented data confirm Tre-recombinase activity on integrated HIV-1 and provide the basis for the non-genetic transient application of engineered recombinases, which may be a valuable component of future HIV eradication strategies.

And a very nice journal club by Lucian Duvenage.

Being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS used to be a death sentence. Today, for many people, the disease is a chronic condition that can be managed with so-called antiretroviral drugs.  Drug treatment has helped people with HIV infection live long and near-normal lives. Now, as the HIV/AIDS population ages, they are facing a unique set of health challenges.

All the more reason for therapeutic vaccines....

Are sexual relations closely intertwined with oral health? Jo-Anne Jones, RDH, addresses that question by sharing some of the latest statistics regarding a possible connection between the human papillomavirus (HPV) and oral cancer.

On April 12, 1955, scientists and reporters gathered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for a momentous event. Millions of Americans huddled around radios and televisions that day to learn whether the world’s first polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh, could prevent a devastating disease that killed and paralyzed thousands upon thousands of people, mainly children.

It’s hard to overstate the terror of polio back then. It would arrive each summer, like clockwork, leaving behind vivid reminders for all to see: wheelchairs, crutches, leg braces, iron lungs, deformed limbs. When Dr. Salk’s injectable vaccine was declared “safe, effective, and potent” that remarkable day in Ann Arbor, a nation celebrated. In churches, department stores, and coffee shops people wept openly with relief. President Eisenhower invited Dr. Salk to the White House where, in a trembling voice, he thanked the young researcher for saving children everywhere.

A variant influenza virus that has infected a dozen people since August 2011 -- almost all under 10 years of age -- is less of a threat to adolescents and adults, because they show some cross-reactive antibody to it, according to an MMWR article. All cases recovered fully.
The variant, called influenza A (H3N2)v, carries genes from avian, swine, and human viruses. There is evidence that it is transmissible from person to person.
The CDC reports that roughly a third of people over age 10 have cross-reactive antibodies to this virus "that might provide some protection from infection." The proportion is slightly less in those aged 65 and older.
If the virus starts to show sustained person-to-person transmission, the CDC says a specific vaccine virus has been isolated and could be used to develop a vaccine.

Image courtesy of Russell Kightley Media

Further to advice issued by the RACGP and the Chief MedicalOfficer, NPS is encouraging health professionals to offer theirpatients influenza vaccination, especially for those at risk...

Data collected during the 2010 influenza season showed that the Fluvax vaccine was associated with febrile reactions in up to 1 in 100 children under the age of 5 years. The new recommendations are that Fluvax must not be administered to children under the age of 5 and should only be used in children between 5 and 10 if one of the other alternative vaccines is not readily available. The other recommended vaccines (Agrippal, Fluarix, Influvac and Vaxigrip) may be used in anyone over 6 months of age.

Good advice for South Africa too, as we head into flue season!

Getting AIDS test results from labs to remote villages once took weeks in Mozambique, with the information sent by courier along the impoverished country's terrible roads. The delay could mean death.

Now, communications engineers have adapted office printers and cell-phone technology to wirelessly and immediately relay test results. Britain's Sequoia Technology Group and Telit Wireless said Tuesday the printers are being rolled out elsewhere in Africa after initial success in Mozambique, where the project has been running for a year.

Good news out of Africa!

Piranha flu...get it before it gets you!

Currently, HIV-infected individuals must stay on antiretroviral therapy for their entire lives, as the virus almost invariably reemerges when the drugs are withdrawn. Now, with an eye to purging the virus from its cellular hideouts, scientists here at the International Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) meeting in March have found new ways to lure HIV out of latent immune cells—a first step toward a long-term, drug-free functional cure.

Over 600,000 Apple Mac computers running on OS X have been infected with a flashback Trojan virus called BackDoor.Flashback.39. But how can you tell if your Mac has been infected with the Flashback Trojan virus?

So I count computer viruses as part of the stable - my Mac is dear to me!