zoonoses
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We’ll Likely Deal With More Pandemics as Earth Heats Up
As climate change permanently alters our environment, the world is increasingly opening up to new viruses — with potentially deadly consequences for us humans. A study published Thursday in Nature finds that as climate change is forcing animals to move habitats, they will increasingly come into contact with humans, and with each other, creating more…
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Ebola Can Linger in the Brains of Survivors Even After Antibody Treatment, Study Suggests
New research in animals seems to confirm the frightening resilience of the Ebola virus. The study found that the virus could routinely persist in the brains of monkeys following treatment with monoclonal antibodies, even sometimes resurfacing weeks later to cause acute illness and death. The findings, the authors say, highlight the need to monitor the…
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Scientists Deliberately Infected People With COVID-19: Here’s What Happened to Them
The first results from a UK trial that deliberately exposed people to the coronavirus are finally here. Among other things, the research found that people who caught the infection became symptomatic within two days and remained infectious for longer than a week. None of the volunteers became severely sick, though a few did continue to…
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Self-Spreading Vaccine Research Could Spin Out of Control, Experts Warn
Imagine a future scenario in which a dangerous new virus is detected in chimpanzees. To prevent this virus from spreading to humans, biologists decide to deliberately infect scores of wild chimps with a transmissible vaccine — an infectious, lab-grown virus that immunizes, rather than harms, its host. The chimps, now vaccinated, no longer pose a…