Home. It’s where the viruses spread.
Some see a mild illness, or no obvious illness at all, after infection by Ebola virus as almost heretical. But new evidence adds to that which already exists – it Read More …
Author: Ian M Mackay, PhD (EIC)
Elevate the Flu baseline
Summer has technically ended in Australia (sure – go look at a temperature prediction!) and Flu spent all of it being abnormally active. The 2018 Flu season peaked in September Read More …
Scared of the Dark risks
Gain-of-function research of concern (GOFROC) virus research has returned to the news.[1] With it come fears of dark risks; we will either die from influenza without this research or die Read More …
Will violence Let Go of the DRC long enough to kick out Ebola virus?
The 2018/19 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was showing some promising signs of control earlier this week. Then the latest attacks Read More …
Flu vaccines can Save The Day
There is a strong relationship between heart failure and respiratory illness due to infection.[1] It makes good sense that if a safe way to prevent infection from developing into illness Read More …
Memories
Dug these up from the old blog after a chat with a collaborator who recalled one of them fondly. I regret nothing!!! IMPORTED POSTS* You’re the virus I got… To Read More …
Hide: it’s easy when no-one’s looking
Saffold cardiovirus (SAFV) was first described in 2007,[from a 1981 human sample; 10] and since then has been found to consist of 11 genotypes (SAFV-1 to SAFV-11; [13] ) of Read More …
What does a positive PCR result mean…or not mean?
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has remained a hugely important laboratory tool for decades. Subtle changes to the enzymes and drastic changes to the detection of a result have occurred Read More …
Starting a riot
Among last year’s many stories about influenza (Flu) deaths during the 1918 pandemic, we often heard about the secondary impact of bacteria; they complicate Flu virus infections, causing pneumonia and Read More …
Invincible: viruses are always out there, take EV-D68 for example
Enterovirus species D genotype 68 (EV-D68) will be back in our media streams in 2020 as the biennial peak likely returns to cause more cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) Read More …
Familia figures
Science communication can come in many shapes and sizes. But a picture still tells a thousand words. And in this case, there are about 6,000 words worth of mosquito communication Read More …
Way up…
Australia has had a big summer of flu with numbers way up from what we’re used to. As my recent posts here and here flagged, it’s hard to know whether Read More …
SunFluwer…
Just for fun, I thought I’d check in on Australia’s influenza tally again. I posted my last tally 3 days ago (Jan 18) and upon looking today (Jan 21), it’s Read More …
What’s up d̵a̵n̵g̵e̵r̵ Flu?
Influenza is still hammering Australia with unseasonable disrespect. Is this just more testing for flu viruses, or is it a new variant virus? January in Australia is continuing 2018’s out-of-character Read More …
Flu keeps Australia under the weather
Influenza has been unseasonably hyperactive during Australia’s hotter and wetter months at the end of 2018 and the start of 2019. In what’s shaping up to be our biggest summer Read More …