Since the pandemic began, the new coronavirus has infected more than 780,000 people and killed at least 37,000. The experts at The Conversation offer its readers insights from every continent.
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Articles on Viral infections
Displaying 1 - 20 of 33 articles
Citizens around the world look warily at the rates of illnesses and deaths at home and abroad as the economic effects of COVID-19 start to hit.
Among the more than 20,000 drugs approved by the FDA, there may be some that can treat COVID-19. A team at the University of California, San Francisco, is identifying possible candidates.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic is undergoing extensive genetic analysis around the world to understand its origin and evolution.
Currently, the number of confirmed global COVID-19 cases is doubling about every six days. At this rate, Australia's health sector will be unable to cope.
Viruses are small enough to pass through filters, including face masks. Disabling viruses with electrically charged gases could be a better way to curb airborne transmission.
Coronavirus can cause lung damage, pneumonia and multi-organ failure, or sepsis, among other things.
People panic-buying face masks to protect themselves from coronavirus risk running down stocks should we really need them.
There's no evidence you can spread the Wuhan coronavirus before showing symptoms, but one study suggests it's possible for children and young people to be infectious without ever having symptoms.
Four people in Australia have tested positive to the Wuhan coronavirus so far. So how does it spread, who is most at risk, and what is Australia doing to reduce transmission?
Recent discoveries on the effects of live attenuated vaccines challenge the current vaccine paradigm and question vaccination policies.
The flu vaccine is built on the strains expected to circulate in a given year. While the majority of strains circulating this year are matched in the vaccine, there's one strain we didn't predict.
The 2018 flu season was mild, while 2017 was a particularly bad year. It's impossible to predict what the 2019 flu season has in store, but we've seen more cases so far this year than usual.
Protection wanes after four or five months, so for most people, it makes sense to get a flu shot in mid to late May or early June so you're protected when the flu season peaks in August or September.
Australia's college of obstetricians has warned pregnant women against kissing their toddlers on the mouth or sharing food because of the risk of cytomegalovirus (CMV). But is this advice useful?
It doesn't just seem like the world is experiencing more viral infections than before – it's a reality. And the way humans live today helps viruses thrive.
When day zero arrives in Cape Town, the routine surveillance systems that monitor disease outbreaks will be enhanced to pick up new diseases.
A clinical trial currently underway in France could confirm that that HIV treatment can be safely reduced to just four days a week, while maintaining the same efficacy.
New reports that stopping antibiotics when you feel better is better for you could do more harm than good. But it has reopened the debate on how long antibiotics should be used.
New genetic technologies are letting us look at flu evolution right where it starts: within individual people, while they're sick.
Top contributors
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Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW
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Laureate Professor, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
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Brett Montgomery is a Friend of The Conversation.
Senior Lecturer in General Practice, University of Western Australia
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Deputy Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza
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Professor and Director of Doherty Epidemiology, University of Melbourne
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Nic Geard is a Friend of The Conversation.
Senior Lecturer, School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne; Senior Research Fellow, Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne
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Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
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Craig Williams is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Biology, University of South Australia
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Professor, Australian National University
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Chief Research Scientist, Virology Project Leader, CSIRO
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Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Monash University
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Kim Jacobson is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate professor, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University
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PhD Student in Immunology, Imperial College London
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Associate Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Affiliate Associate Professor of Genome Sciences and Microbiology, University of Washington
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Associate Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases Physician, Australian National University
