Word: viruses
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Since 1997, when six people in Hong Kong died of avian influenza - the first confirmed human victims of the deadly virus - this southern Chinese city has been the front line in the fight against a potential global pandemic that scientists warn could ultimately kill millions. Unfortunately, the bird flu virus has proven a canny, and adaptable, enemy...
...Hong Kong government reported yet another outbreak of the virus at one of the city's largest poultry farms after 60 chickens were found dead. Putting the city on "serious alert" for further outbreaks, Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok announced a 21-day shutdown of the local poultry industry, suspending all live chicken imports from mainland China, which supplies about half its live wholesale markets, and culling 80,000 birds from farms near the outbreak's locus. York said Tuesday that there were no reports of humans sickened by the virus, and that...
Curbing global cancer rates is not simply a matter of transferring the successful prevention methods from the U.S. and Europe to the developing world, however. The most common cancers outside our borders are caused by chronic infections with viruses - very different from the ones that afflict us. In Africa, for example, the three most common cancers are Kaposi's sarcoma (related to HIV infection) and liver and cervical cancer. In China, liver cancer is a huge problem. The good news is that while researchers are still working on an effective AIDS vaccine, they can vaccinate against the hepatitis B virus...
...influenza virus was discovered in the early 1930s, and scientists developed a working vaccine by the 1940s, when it was first used on soldiers during World War II. In 1947, Jonas Salk, one of the vaccine's creators, began to develop a polio vaccine, which was perfected and approved...
Today's influenza vaccine contains three strands of the virus, as determined by the World Health Organization (WHO). A global network of scientists survey the virus's mutations over the course of a year. "They see how the virus is changing, where it's changing, and the geographic spread of the new variance," says Bridges. The WHO holds two vaccine strategy meetings each year, one for the northern hemisphere (in February) and one for the Southern (in September). As soon as the organization announces which influenza subtypes should be targeted by the vaccine, medical labs work furiously to develop...