The Origin of the Virus

The Origin of the Virus PDF

Author: Paolo Barnard

Publisher:

Published: 2021-09-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781854571069

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Ground-breaking, evidence-based book asks how many lives were lost because of Chinas negligence about lab-leaked SARS-CoV-2. In a disturbing reconstruction of events by two of the most reputable scientists in the world, a new book reveals for the first time how Chinese authorities and elite Wuhan scientists knew about SARS-CoV-2s menacing biological features from the start but remain silent to this day. In The Origin of the Virus (Clinical Press) Dr Steven Quay and Prof Angus Dalgleish, working with Italian reporter Paolo Barnard, show how China engaged in lies, omissions and obfuscations to cover up the laboratory origin of the virus. Had they immediately alerted the international community and policymakers of the extremely pathogenic molecular machinery present in SARS-CoV-2's genome, very large numbers of lives may have been spared, argue Quay, Dalgleish and Barnard. The authors provide a shocking account of the extreme experiments that led to the outbreak of the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish influenza. They broaden the censure to explain why some American and British scientists thwarted a proper investigation of the origin of COVID-19. Despite its impeccable scientific grounding the book is both a readable and gripping account that, for the first time, allows the public to partake in what lies at the heart of the many scandals surrounding the birth of the most deadly virus in modern times.

Origin and Evolution of Viruses

Origin and Evolution of Viruses PDF

Author: Esteban Domingo

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2008-06-23

Total Pages: 573

ISBN-13: 0080564968

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New viral diseases are emerging continuously. Viruses adapt to new environments at astounding rates. Genetic variability of viruses jeopardizes vaccine efficacy. For many viruses mutants resistant to antiviral agents or host immune responses arise readily, for example, with HIV and influenza. These variations are all of utmost importance for human and animal health as they have prevented us from controlling these epidemic pathogens. This book focuses on the mechanisms that viruses use to evolve, survive and cause disease in their hosts. Covering human, animal, plant and bacterial viruses, it provides both the basic foundations for the evolutionary dynamics of viruses and specific examples of emerging diseases. NEW - methods to establish relationships among viruses and the mechanisms that affect virus evolution UNIQUE - combines theoretical concepts in evolution with detailed analyses of the evolution of important virus groups SPECIFIC - Bacterial, plant, animal and human viruses are compared regarding their interation with their hosts

Viral

Viral PDF

Author: Matt Ridley

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2022-06-28

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 0063273608

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"Chan and Ridley write with an urgency...that inspires gripping depictions of what viruses are, how infectious-disease laboratories work and wonderfully lucid descriptions of bats. . . . They powerfully recount how dangerous pathogens can both leak from a lab and emerge in nature." (New York Times Book Review) Understanding how Covid-19 started is crucial for the future of humankind. Viral is the most incisive and authoritative book about the search for the source of the virus. A new virus descended on the human species in 2019 wreaking unprecedented havoc. Finding out where it came from and how it first jumped into people is an urgent priority, but early expectations that this would prove an easy question to answer have been dashed. Nearly two years into the pandemic, the crucial mystery of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not only unresolved but has deepened. In this uniquely insightful book, a scientist and a writer join forces to try to get to the bottom of how a virus whose closest relations live in bats in subtropical southern China somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometres away in the city of Wuhan. They grapple with the baffling fact that the virus left none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create: no infected market animals or wildlife, no chains of early cases in travellers to the city, no smouldering epidemic in a rural area, no rapid adaptation of the virus to its new host—human beings. To try to solve this pressing mystery, Viral delves deep into the events of 2019 leading up to 2021, the details of what went on in animal markets and virology laboratories, the records and data hidden from sight within archived Chinese theses and websites, and the clues that can be coaxed from the very text of the virus’s own genetic code. The result is a gripping detective story that takes the reader deeper and deeper into a metaphorical cave of mystery. One by one the authors explore promising tunnels only to show that they are blind alleys, until, miles beneath the surface, they find themselves tantalisingly close to a shaft that leads to the light.

The Threat of Pandemic Influenza

The Threat of Pandemic Influenza PDF

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2005-04-09

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 0309095042

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Public health officials and organizations around the world remain on high alert because of increasing concerns about the prospect of an influenza pandemic, which many experts believe to be inevitable. Moreover, recent problems with the availability and strain-specificity of vaccine for annual flu epidemics in some countries and the rise of pandemic strains of avian flu in disparate geographic regions have alarmed experts about the world's ability to prevent or contain a human pandemic. The workshop summary, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? addresses these urgent concerns. The report describes what steps the United States and other countries have taken thus far to prepare for the next outbreak of "killer flu." It also looks at gaps in readiness, including hospitals' inability to absorb a surge of patients and many nations' incapacity to monitor and detect flu outbreaks. The report points to the need for international agreements to share flu vaccine and antiviral stockpiles to ensure that the 88 percent of nations that cannot manufacture or stockpile these products have access to them. It chronicles the toll of the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating among poultry in many parts of Asia, which now accounts for the culling of millions of birds and the death of at least 50 persons. And it compares the costs of preparations with the costs of illness and death that could arise during an outbreak.

ZIKA VIRUS DISEASE

ZIKA VIRUS DISEASE PDF

Author: Adnan Quereshi

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2017-11-17

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 0128125470

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Zika Virus provides an authoritative account of one of most fascinating viruses of the 21st century, covering all the main points. It includes coverage of clinical manifestations, such as fever and fatigue, but also delves into neurological manifestations like acute demyelinating neuropathy. In addition, the book discusses new evidence that suggests that Zika fever in pregnant women can cause abnormal brain development in fetuses by mother-to-child transmission. The Zika virus infection has become one of the first where women are actively discouraged from getting pregnant. Readers will find this book to be a comprehensive resource on the topic. Covers every important aspect of the Zika virus disease, from biological, to social and economic impacts Focuses on women’s health issues that have surfaced, including birth defects in newborns Written in an easy to comprehend manner, with technical terms clearly defined in chapters that highlight genetics

The Origins of COVID-19

The Origins of COVID-19 PDF

Author: Li Zhang

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1503630188

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A new strain of coronavirus emerged sometime in November 2019, and within weeks a cluster of patients began to be admitted to hospitals in Wuhan with severe pneumonia, most of them linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. China's seemingly effective containment of the first stage of the epidemic, in glaring contrast with the uncontrolled spread in Europe and the United States, was heralded as a testament to the Chinese Communist Party's unparalleled command over the biomedical sciences, population, and economy. Conversely, much academic and public debate about the origins of the virus focuses on the supposedly "backwards" cultural practice of consuming wild animals and the perceived problem of authoritarianism suppressing information about the outbreak until it was too late. The Origins of COVID-19, by Li Zhang, shifts debate away from narrow cultural, political, or biomedical frameworks, emphasizing that we must understand the origins of emerging diseases with pandemic potential (such as SARS and COVID-19) in the more complex and structural entanglements of state-making, science and technology, and global capitalism. She argues that both narratives, that of China's victory and the racist depictions of its culpability, do not address—and even aggravate—these larger forces that degrade the environment and increase the human-wildlife interface through which novel pathogens spill over into humans and may rapidly expand into global pandemics.

The Hot Zone

The Hot Zone PDF

Author: Richard Preston

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0385479565

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The virus kills nine out of ten of its victims. Its effects are so quick and so gruesome that even biohazard experts are terrified. It is airborne, it is extremely contagious, and it is about to burn through the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Is there any way to stop it? This doomsday scenario confronted a biohazard SWAT team struggling in secret to stop the outbreak of an exotic "hot" virus at an Army research facility outside Washington. "The Hot Zone" tells the dramatic story of their dangerous race against time, along with an alarming account of how previously unknown viruses that have lived undetected in the rain forest for eons are now entering human populations. From the airlocked confines of a biosafety level 4 military lab, to an airliner over Kenya carrying a passenger dissolving into a human virus bomb, to a deserted jungle cave alive with deadly virus, THE HOT ZONE is a non-fiction thriller like no other. "The Andromeda Strain" was fiction--- "this is real!"

Flu

Flu PDF

Author: Gina Kolata

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2011-04-01

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 1429979356

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Veteran journalist Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It presents a fascinating look at true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it.

Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of Life

Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of Life PDF

Author: Anna Neubeck

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-01-03

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3030810399

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This book presents an overview of current views on the origin of life and its earliest evolution. Each chapter describes key processes, environments and transition on the long road from geochemistry and astrochemistry to biochemistry and finally to the ancestors of today ́s organisms. This book combines the bottom-up and the top-down approaches to life including the origin of key chemical and structural features of living cells and the nature of abiotic factors that shaped these features in primordial environments. The book provides an overview of the topic as well as its state of the art for graduate students and newcomers to the field. It also serves as a reference for researchers in origins of life on Earth and beyond.

Ebola Virus Disease

Ebola Virus Disease PDF

Author: Adnan Qureshi

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2016-01-09

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0128042427

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Ebola Virus Disease: From Origins to Outbreak covers Ebola virus disease in its entirety from its origins through major outbreaks in the past to the present day outbreak. It contains information on the West Saharan response to Ebola as well as highlights from the field in West Africa from Dr. Qureshi and Dr. Chughtai, helping to solve the primary question of what’s next and aiding in formulating a path forward. With a growing awareness of the devastating effects of this viral disease and an influx of topical research, this book provides the information the global community of researchers, clinicians and students need to better inform their research and study of Ebola virus disease. Includes perspectives from the 2014-2015 outbreak from the field Provides a detailed overview of the origins of Ebola virus through present day discoveries Written with an integrative approach, incorporating scientific research with insights from the field