Luc Henry, EPFL – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
Bacterial infections remain a major threat to human and animal health. Worse still, the catalogue of useful antibiotics is shrinking as pathogens build up resistance to these drugs. There are few promising…
The World Health Organisation has declared Nigeria to be free of the Ebola virus, after six weeks with no new cases being detected. Speaking from the capital, Abuja, WHO representative Rui Gama Vaz told…
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the worst in recorded history. There have been in excess of 7,400 cases and 3,439 deaths, primarily in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. More recently, the spread of…
The Spanish nurse who contracted Ebola virus while caring for a dying priest appears to be the victim of the first transmission in this outbreak to have taken place outside of Africa. Along with the traveller…
Chacha, a farmer and businessman from northern Tanzania, returned home from market one afternoon to find that his family’s newly adopted puppy had bitten five of his children. The puppy had been playful…
Despite its name, the Crimson Rosella is perhaps Australia’s most colour-variable bird and a cause of this striking and beautiful diversity seems to be a disease that’s potentially deadly to many other…
My social media accounts today are cluttered with stories about “mutating” Ebola viruses. The usually excellent ScienceAlert, for example, rather breathlessly informs us “The Ebola virus is mutating faster…
One of the most effective methods used by HIV to evade control is to hide from the immune system. We’re getting to know much more about how the virus does this and research has revealed how normal bacteria…
The current outbreak of Zaire Ebola virus in Western Africa is the largest ever recorded. More than 1800 people have been infected and nearly 1000 people have died. But while drug therapies are close to…
The current epidemic of Ebola, which started in March 2014, has reached Lagos, the most populous city in the most populous country in Africa. This is a huge concern. And while Margaret Chan, director-general…
The current West African ebolavirus outbreak, which has now reached more than 1,000 cases and resulted in more than 800 deaths, is a reminder of the often unpredictable nature of viruses and the difficulties…
Our understanding of Ebola has increased considerably since outbreaks of a mysterious haemorrhagic fever caused by an unknown virus first occurred in Southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo…
An outbreak of parechoviruses in Queensland is causing concern because of the severity of the illness among infants younger than three months old. Dozens of cases have been detected in Australia since…
Here is a puzzle for you. Why did shares in Yahoo! slide by nearly 10% in the days before Heartbleed was announced and then recover after the main news items broke? It has long been the case that security…
As a virologist, I am often asked when science will come up with a solution to stop deadly viruses, such as the current Ebola outbreak in Guinea. With collaborators, I’ve helped design and test over a…
You may have seen recently that scientists recovered and “revived” a giant virus from Siberian permafrost (frozen soil) that dates back 30,000 years. The researchers raised concerns that drilling in the…
Director, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, The University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital and Consultant Physician, Department of Infectious Diseases, Alfred Hospital and Monash University, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity