So what does a flu blog have to do with ‘genetics’ and ‘infectious diseases’?
Well, if you’ve been following this blog for the month of April, you’ll notice that I began expanding the topics to include other infectious and viral diseases that would be in recent news.
With the Gene Genie challenge of blogging on genes and gene-related diseases, now wouldn’t it be cool to talk about the genes that predispose certain individuals and groups to these viral diseases – HIV, malaria, leprosy, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), sinusitis, herpes and others.

Yup. There may be genes responsible for getting certain persons susceptible …read more

Nathan Wolfe, UCLA biologist and NIH Health Pioneer awardee, has the most unusual way of studying viral plague-harbingers.
He goes hunting, deep in the African jungles of Cameroon, Yaound.
The Doctor, as villagers call him, investigates sudden die-offs of primates in the jungles, collects blood from hunters and their kills, tests wild and domestic birds for avian flu and a vast range of fiel research all in the quest to discover viruses originating in the wild with the potential to mutate into pandemic forms.
Animal-to-human invaders or zoonoses – malaria, HIV, smallpox, West Nile, Ebola, SARS, avian influenza – have plagued recent centuries …read more

Viral infections contribute to Alzheimer’s?
With the fast pace research on Alzheimer’s cause and development, it’s not a surprise that many factors are being discovered that affect this progressive disease’s susceptibility and development. But to find that a virus might one culprit… and a common one at that…
The Tangled Neuron takes an in-depth look at the research done by Dr. Ruth Itzhaki, who found latent signs of the herpes simplex virus-1 in areas of the brain most affected by Alzheimers. Dr Itzhaki postulates that the virus infects the brain in older age, as the immune system declines.
If Dr. Itzhaki’s hypothesis …read more

Champion skater Donna Flowers, has been suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, so bad that in some days she would spend 14 hours a day in bed. When her doctor detected high levels of Epstein Barr and human herpes virus-6 infections in her systems, he prescribed valganciclovir to bring her viral load down.
To everyone’s surprise, treating the viral infections also dramatically improved her energy levels.

“I was amazed by the results,” says Professor Jose Montoya, who runs the infectious diseases clinic at Stanford. “Donna was sent to me because high levels of another virus (Epstein Barr) had been detected in her system. …read more

A celebration is in order!
Researchers of liver disease are disclosing that Hepatitis C patients can be completely cured of the viral-borne disease (HCV). A study conducted on 997 patients who were able to achieve complte response to treatment showed that only 8 came down with the disease again.

“I tell my patients who achieve a sustained virologic response to go home and get on with their lives. I tell them that there is less than a 0.5 percent chance that the disease will ever return,” said Mark Swain, professor of medicine at the University of Calgary in Canada, who presented results …read more

Until doctors can find another drug that can treat his tuberculosis, Robert Daniels is spending the rest of his life in jail-like isolation.
Daniels has what the World Health O. dubbed as XDR-TB, or extremely drug resistant tuberculosis , which is virtually untreatable using current anti-TB drugs. Daniels was considered “uncooperative and a danger to the public” and was ordered locked up because he did not take precautions to avoid infecting others or even to wear a mask in public. Although currently rare in the US, XDR-TB broke out in Africa last year with an alarmingly high mortality rate. XDR-TB is …read more

Zinc finger proteins come to the rescue once again.
The zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) capable of inhibiting Moloney murine leukemia virus and Sindbis virus replication, are now being reported as effective in inhibiting Ebola and Marburg virus infections. German researchers will publish the results in the March 2007 issue of the Journal of Virology.
Ebola and Marburg viruses cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates, and have mortality rates as high as 90%. Currenly there are no vaccines or therapy for treating infected patients, so this research should lend some important breakthroughs.
eMaxHealth has more.
 
Tags: Ebola, Marburg, viruses, zinc finger …read more

Talk about a jail break out.
At least 150 inmates and seven guards in a Las Vegas county jail got sick with the norovirus, a gastrointestinal infection that causes diasshea, vomiting and cramps.
Also called the Norwalk virus, infamous for causing a cruise ship-wide quarantine two years ago, the virus is passed in the stool of infected persons, either by swallowing stool-contaminated food or water, or from eating infected raw oysters.
Many sickened inmates were kitchen workers, leading officials to think the virus might have spread by contaminated food or trays. District epidemiologist Brian Labus said the outbreak may be related to …read more

Obviously, as a transmitable disease, the human papillomavirus infects both men and women.
Published results have previously only focused the consequences of HPV infection on women and cervical cancer. Now, an unpublished data revealed that 60 per cent of men between the ages of 18 and 70 are infected with HPV.
Compared that with 25 per cent of women between 14 to 59 revealed to be carrying the virus that causes cervical cancer.
China View reported that new data shows that HPV infection is quite common in men of all dates, while the highest rates on infection in women spike in the early …read more

Apparently, duct tape is NOT be the “ultimate material” we all thought it to be.
A 2002 study showed that it’s effective in removing warts in children and young adults. Cheap and painless, the tape supposedly works by irritating the skin and stimulating the body’s immune system to attack the virus that causes warts.
However, a new study casts doubt on the duct tape’s “medicinal use” when research among adults did not have the same effect as the previous one on children. The big difference – the former used the gray rubberized tape, and the latter study used the transparent variety. Duct …read more