Viruses

Profectus BioSciences Inc., a Baltimore-based biotechnology company, said Wednesday that it won a $5.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support the development of a vaccine for a pair of contagious and deadly viruses that the U.S. government has classified as biological and agricultural threats. The viruses are found in other parts of the world. The viruses — Nipah and Hendra — are closely related and cause respiratory and encephalitic disease in humans and animals.

A global nonprofit that battles the spread of viruses has moved into the University of Maryland BioPark after sprouting from the university's Institute of Human Virology. Global Virus Network is the west side research park's newest tenant. It moved from incubator space in the virology institute, within the University of Maryland School of Medicine. GVN combines the resources and expertise of 30 virology research centers in 21 countries, helping them to share information and ideas to explore vaccine development, understand virus behavior and respond to viral outbreaks.

My pediatrician gives our son a flu shot every fall, . but this year he has been sick already. I know the flu vaccine is made new each year. Is it just not good this year?"

Samson, the young male elephant who was diagnosed with a deadly virus at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore late last month, has continued to recover in recent days and has "turned a very positive corner" in his treatment, according to zoo officials. "His energy levels are very close to normal again, he's much brighter and a lot of his symptoms have either gone away or are nearly gone," Michael McClure, general curator for the zoo's animal department, said Thursday. McClure said he and his staff have been nursing Samson back to health around the clock for nearly four weeks and are encouraged by his recovery from the virus, known as elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus.

WASHINGTON -- Scientists say they have the first direct evidence that viruses can mutate and become deadly because of nutritional deficiencies in the hosts they infect.In their experiments, researchers found that a human virus normally harmless to mice mutated and became a heart-damaging agent in mice suffering from a nutritional deficiency. Once changed, they said, the virus also was able to infect and damage the hearts of nutritionally well-balanced mice.This is the first time that a nutritional deficiency in a host has been shown to alter viruses to make them permanently more virulent, the scientists said in a report published in the May 1 issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

A few years ago I made a fool of myself by writing all kinds of purple prose about a Columbus Day virus that was supposed to pop up and destroy the hard disks of thousands of computers around the world.As it turned out, something like 17 cases of Columbus Day virus mayhem were actually confirmed, which was undoubtedly less than the number of PC's trashed that day by klutzes who stumbled into their desks and knocked their computers onto the floor.For that reason, I resolved not to join the hysteria over the so-called Michelangelo virus, which was triggered on Friday, the great artist's birthday.

Is there no sure inoculation for all these computer viruses? Seems not. But the Web can tell you a lot about them, why they exist, and what to do (and not do) about them. CERT On any given day, this site can set you quivering with fear over the latest viruses, worms, Trojan horses and other malicious computer attacks. CERT means "computer emergency response team," we think. We couldn't find it spelled out on the site. www.cert.org/ VIRUS FAQS Don't know the Morris worm from the ILOVEYOU virus?

Computer viruses have not been in the headlines lately, but that does not mean they have gone away. They tend to pop up around days such as Halloween or Friday the 13th or Easter, because many of them are timed to lie dormant until a certain date.Viruses, little snippets of rogue code hidden in legitimate application programs that spread by reproducing themselves, are actually very rare.The average home or small business personal computer user has about as much chance of getting infected with a virus as of getting hit by lightning.

The NBC promotional campaign for "Robin Cook's Virus" calls the made-for-TV movie, which is based on Cook's best seller, "Outbreak," timely and cutting edge.The film, an apocalyptic vision about a deadly virus falling into the wrong hands and spreading like wildfire around the world, wants to be a high-tech, new age version of the killer bees story: They're coming, better get ready!But in reality "Virus," airing at 9 tonight on WBAL (Channel 11), is more like low-tech and middle-aged.It's one of those films that for two hours exploits collective fears about such unknowns as flesh-eating viruses.

The name Michelangelo usually conjures up images of great and majestic works of art. These days the name is more likely to conjure up images of destroyed data and ravaged computers.Computer owners and computer users around the world are on the lookout for an insidious virus, named for the famed artist, that is set to wreak havoc on March 6, Michelangelo's birthday."We are trying to save as many machines and as much data as possible," says Patricia M. Hoffman of Santa Clara, Calif., an authority on detecting and neutralizing computer viruses.

A dozen or more cases of mumps have been reported among Loyola University Maryland students over the past month, prompting officials to alert the campus community to signs of the rare virus that has spread rapidly across college campuses in recent outbreaks. That's as many cases as have occurred in a typical year statewide since 2005, when the state health department started tracking outbreaks. Confirmed and suspected infections were found in undergraduate students in multiple class years and living both on and off Loyola's North Baltimore campus.

A deadly virus has stricken Samson, the only elephant born at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore in its 137-year history, but zoologists are hopeful that he will recover because the strain is thought to be less serious in his species. Samson also has survived longer than others with the virus. Caretakers first noticed the soon-to-be-5-year-old male looking lethargic Feb. 26, and feared it was a sign of what is known as elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus. They began treating him for the disease, which can kill within days, and tests confirmed the virus.

A new study has found more evidence that people may catch the flu through airborne particles and not just direct or indirect contact with a person who has the virus. The study from the University of Maryland School of Public Health also found that when flu patients wear a surgical mask, spread of the virus in even the smallest airborne droplets is significantly reduced. The study was published Thursday ini the journal PLOS Pathogens. Our study provides new evidence that there is nearly nine times more influenza virus present in the smallest airborne droplets in the breath exhaled from those infected with flu than in the larger droplets that would be expected to carry more virus,” said Dr. Donald Milton, lead author of the study who also directs the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health.

When police accused an Edgemere man of having sex with a 13-year-old boy, most of the charges were straightforward: soliciting a minor and a related sexual offense, which together could carry up to 30 years in prison. But Baltimore County prosecutors also accused Steven Douglas Podles of knowingly attempting to transmit the HIV virus to the boy - a seldom-used, and often controversial, charge that carries an additional three years behind bars. Even as prosecutors prepare their case against Podles, the effectiveness of such laws is being debated by legislators and public health officials from Maryland to California.

Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties are getting sprayed for mosquitoes and health officials are warning residents to take precautions as the nation copes with the worst season of West Nile Virus since the disease was discovered in the United States in 1999. One person in Maryland has died from the disease this summer and 21 have contracted it, according to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Nationally, the potentially fatal disease, spread by mosquitoes that pick it up from infected birds, has afflicted 1,993 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

For the first year in more than a decade, no rabies vaccine baits will be placed in Anne Arundel, after the county was cut from the federal program, according to county health officials. The project used a county police helicopter and volunteers to immunize thousands of raccoons and other small wild animals in an effort to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, dropping baits to be eaten by the animals in late summer and fall. The number of reported rabies cases has plummeted since the county began using the edible vaccine baits, starting with a small area in 1998.

Scientists have discovered how a family of dangerous viruses invades healthy cells, a finding that promises new treatments for dengue fever, West Nile and other diseases that infect more than 50 million people every year. The dengue virus, which sparks severe fevers and can cause internal bleeding, and the West Nile virus, carried across the United States by birds, are both emerging diseases in the Americas. But scientists have not understood how they infect cells once they invade the body.

Since the Persian Gulf war, computer experts and military strategists have been toying with a chilling new concept in warfare: Knocking out an enemy's weapons by ruining his computer systems with viruses designed to throw off or reverse the commands originally programmed.Such a concept could reduce an enemy to helplessness quickly.In 1990, the U.S. Army, acting through the Defense Department and Small Business Administration, solicited bids on a contract for feasibility studies on the idea.

An adult in Central Maryland has been diagnosed with this year's first case of West Nile Virus, according to The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The virus was also detected in a pool of mosquitoes collected in Montgomery County by the U.S. Department of Defense. Most people with West Nile virus do not show symptoms. Those who do will have a fever, headache, body aches, skin rash and swollen lymph glands 3 to 15 days after a bite by an infected mosquito.