Academics have sent an open letter to the World Health Organisation calling for the Olympics to be postponed or moved because of the Zika threat. They’re overreacting.
There are a number of stumbling blocks to intra African collaboration. These must be addressed to ensure that research is not duplicated and that findings are shared.
The world’s scientific community is focused on how to improve detection and responses to emerging diseases such as Zika virus and Ebola. So what can we learn from the most recent large-scale outbreaks?
To tackle Zika and other viral outbreaks, we need to focus not only on the pathology of the disease, but also on the global political and economic architecture.
Bats can carry some of the deadliest diseases known to affect humans and yet they don’t seem to get sick. So what can we learn from a bat’s immune system?
Laura Boykin, The University of Western Australia; Joseph Ndunguru, Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute; Monica Kehoe, Department of Agriculture and Food - Western Australia, and Peter Sseruwagi, Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute
Rapid genetic disease screening will be the key to saving East Africa’s crops - just as it was during West Africa’s ebola crisis.
Thomas Aagaard Rasmussen, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Sharon Lewin, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Ebola’s clever trick – to lie dormant inside a cell or to hide in a particular organ – is not unfamiliar. Lots of viruses do it. HIV is the master of such a trick.
Part-time lecturer at the Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard University, and Lecturer at the School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Liberia
Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, and Professor of Neurology, University of Liverpool