This Week in Virology – TWiV

24 September 2008

The first episode of my new netcast, This Week in Virology – TWiV – has been posted. It’s at www.twiv.tv.

Play

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #1

In this episode, Dick Despommier and I talk about West Nile Virus. 

I hope to continue TWiV on a weekly basis. Next topic for 26 September: polio.

  • Jeremy Walton

    I have been listening to your podcast recently and I found it interesting in the polio podcast that you said that smallpox is the only virus that has been eradicated. I find this interesting, since I have seen smallpox in the last five years. Specifically, when I was in Afghanistan, there was a boy that I cam into contact with that had what appeared to be smallpox. Are there still areas in the world where the smallpox virus is present?

  • profvrr

    Jeremy,

    There are no areas of the world with smallpox – the disease was
    eradicated in 1979. However, it would be incorrect to say that the
    virus is not present – the US and Russian have known stocks of the
    virus. Furthermore, it has been speculated that stockpiles of the
    virus, produced by the USSR as part of its bioweapons program, must be
    somewhere in the world.

    I doubt that what you saw in Afghanistan was a case of smallpox -
    possibly another rash disease.

  • http://www.club-penguin.org/ Club Penguin Cheats

    I find this interesting, since I have seen smallpox in the last five years. Specifically, when I was in Afghanistan, there was a boy that I cam into contact with that had what appeared to be smallpox.

  • http://www.club-penguin.org/ Club Penguin Cheats

    I find this interesting, since I have seen smallpox in the last five years. Specifically, when I was in Afghanistan, there was a boy that I cam into contact with that had what appeared to be smallpox.