virus

Canadian researchers thwart Ebola virus

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Christopher Black/The Canadian Press

Thursday, June 14, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

A team of Canadian researchers has developed one of the most effective cures yet for the Ebola virus. That’s big news both for treating the deadliest virus on Earth and tackling myriad other similarly aggressive diseases.

The treatment, in which injections of protein-grabbing antibodies stop a virus from replicating, has the longest treatment window so far resulting in full recovery – a full day. There’s just one catch: It can take up to two weeks for symptoms of the disease to appear.

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Canada’s pandemic response needs work, federal health agency says

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Photo by Henry Romero/Reuters

April 3, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

There are still serious shortcomings in the way public-health bodies communicate with physicians, nurses and pharmacists on the front lines of a pandemic, says the Public Health Agency of Canada.

And almost three years after a flu pandemic put the country on high alert, the federal agency has put out a call for a new strategy to improve communication with clinicians during pandemic response.

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Germ warfare: The creation of a lethal virus sparks a debate pitting science against security

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Colorized transmission electron micrograph of Avian influenza A H5N1 viruses (seen in gold) grown in MDCK cells (seen in green) are shown in this 1997 image.
Cynthia Goldsmith/THE CANADIAN PRESS

With a recommendation that scientists be allowed to publish details of how they engineered a highly contagious strain of bird flu, the World Health Organization has come down on the side of those who argue that humanity is best served by the free exchange of knowledge. In doing so, it may have risked letting that knowledge fall into the hands of those who would do humanity harm

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Thursday, February 23, 2012 – Globe and Mail

When two groups of scientists on either side of the Atlantic engineered a highly contagious strain of avian flu, their findings were variously hailed as brilliant, groundbreaking – and reckless.

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