Slashdot Mirror
Examining Influenza
Wolffman writes "University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have solved a long-standing puzzle about how the influenza virus assembles its genetic contents into infectious particles that enable the virus to spread from cell to cell, scientists have opened a new gateway to a better understanding of one of the world's most virulent diseases."
Probably not. I'm not a virologist but it wouldn't necessarily be enough to eradicate the disease among humans only. Some (many?) virii have the ability to infect multiple species, for example the West Nile virus can infect humans, horses, and crows. Also I remember years ago when I was an undergrad looking at a cladogram following the evolutionary phylogeny of the AIDS virus. At that time there were only a couple hundred different virii but they targeted more than one species. Virii mutate, so its possible under odd circumstances that they occasionally jump species, so a related influenza, AIDS, etc. could reinfect us. Little bastards.
Well, smallpox was eradicated by immunizing everyone. There have not been any natural cases of smallpox for a long time, and there will be none unless some madman commits a crime against all of humanity by re-releasing that virus.
However, influenza, for example, infects other animals than humans. So does the bubonic plague. Complete eradication of these disease would therefore be very difficult.
Polio can be eradicated, though, and so could some others, because no other hosts than humans exist. We are well on the way to eradicating polio.
The article says "What's unique about this virus is that its genome is fragmented into eight RNA segments".
I assume that if this makes it unique, then ebola probably doesn't share the trait.
Immunizing wild waterfowl in southeast asia would probably require something like a genetically modified bacteria that expressed the same antigens as the virus, triggering immunity. Such a bacterium could be introduced into their habitat.
However, since pigs are the intermediary link, it would probably be much easier to innoculate pigs at the same time you innoculate humans. Then you could use a normal vaccine. But first you have to make a vaccine that targets some highly preserved section of the viral DNA, since the protein coat mutates quickly.
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Its important to point out that antibiotics cannot and do not make bacteria resistant. Due to the immense populations that bacteria like to exist in, toss in some regular Mk1 Mod0 life randomness, there is almost a certainty that a percentage of the bacteria that already exist in a population are already resistant to the antibiotic before you even apply it. So, all you do is chop off the part of the population distribution that is susceptible to the antibiotic and the resistant ones get to grow and multiply to fill the space once occupied by antibiotic-susceptible bacteria. I am so sick of so-called medical experts screwing this up in print and TV news. Its one thing to wallow in your own ignorance, its another entirely to pass your disease onto others!
Just a further note though, very few antibiotics actually work on bacteria at a DNA level. Most instead like to hack and slash at a bacteria's cell wall or plasma membrane. Some (my personal favorites) are metabolism arresters that attack metabolic enzymes that the bacteria uses to make energy for life processes.