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.
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Articles on Viral infections
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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.
Hepatitis A, B, C, D and E are very different viruses. Hepatitis A is genetically closer to the common cold than it is to hepatitis B. Hepatitis C is closer to the virus that causes dengue fever.
Humans have a deep history of viral infections, the evidence for which dates back to ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies.
The immune system protects us from the constant onslaught of viruses, bacteria and other types of pathogens we encounter throughout life. But it can sometimes misbehave.
Scientists around the world are trying to develop effective treatments for Ebola infection. But a process of viral mutation, known as "genetic drift", could potentially compromise their efforts.
Food distributor Patties Foods has recalled two brands of frozen mixed berries — Nanna’s and Creative Gourmet — due to reports of three people in Victoria, four in Queensland and two in New South Wales…
The extent to which our personalities determine aspects of our lives and health has increasingly been the subject of research over the last few years. There was the suggestion, for example, that being…
We’ve all experienced the abdominal cramps and the urge to get to a toilet – quickly! When the stomach and intestinal tract become inflamed, our bodies respond with the sudden onset of diarrhoea, associated…
Fewer Australian babies need to be readmitted to hospital before their first birthday than in the 1990s, a new study suggests…
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…
Some Indigenous groups have been found to be particularly vulnerable to new strain of influenza (H7N9) currently found in…
Chikungunya is a virus transmitted to people by mosquitoes; it usually causes a non-fatal but debilitating illness. Despite thousands of people being infected each year in Africa, Asia and Melanesia, chikungunya…
Top contributors
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Peter C. Doherty is a Friend of The Conversation.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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Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
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Associate Professor in Biology and Associate Director: Teaching Innovation Unit, 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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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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Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University
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Professor in Microbiology and Molecular Biology, UNSW
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Research Fellow, Mathematical Biology and Physiology, University of Melbourne
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Professor of Infectious Diseases, University of Cape Town
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Professor of Eye & Vision Health, Flinders University
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Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Stellenbosch University
