Million Bells – Calibrachoa

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus, an RNA virus in the retrovirus family. Two types of HIV have been characterised: HIV-1 is the more virulent and is responsible for most infections worldwide; HIV-2 is mainly confined to West Africa. The genome consists of two copies of a single-stranded +RNA, which contains nine genes. The roughly spherical virus particle has a diameter of about 120 nm; it is enveloped and contains a conical capsid made of around 2,000 copies of the p24 protein. The envelope glycoprotein, a trimeric complex of gp120 and gp41, binds to CD4, the primary receptor on the host cell.

Transmission occurs by the transfer of bodily fluids including blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk, in which the virus is present both as free virus particles and within infected immune cells. HIV infects key cells in the human immune system including CD4⁺ T helper cells, macrophages and dendritic cells. Infection leads to low levels of CD4⁺ T cells via several mechanisms, resulting in a progressive immunodeficiency disease known as AIDS.

• ...that elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus, found mostly among young captive Asian elephants (pictured), can have a fatality rate of up to 90%?
• ...that epidemiologist Joseph L. Melnick found that polio chiefly spread through fecal contamination, usually by soiled hands, and that the poliovirus could survive for extended periods in sewage?
• ...that a global advisory committee has been monitoring rapidly developing COVID-19 vaccines against a background of growing misinformation and vaccine hesitancy?
• ...that sexual-health doctor Mags Portman and activist Greg Owen worked together to provide accessible HIV medication, preventing thousands of new HIV diagnoses in the United Kingdom?
• ...that before the Hershey–Chase experiment confirmed the role of DNA, scientists believed that genes were carried by proteins?

Ali Maow Maalin (1954 – 22 July 2013) was a hospital cook and health worker from Merca, Somalia, who is the last person in the world known to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox. Although he worked in the local smallpox eradication programme, he had not been successfully vaccinated. In October 1977, he was infected with the Variola minor strain of the virus while driving two children with smallpox symptoms to quarantine. He did not experience complications and made a full recovery. An aggressive containment campaign was successful in preventing an outbreak, and smallpox was declared to have been eradicated globally by the World Health Organization (WHO) two years later.

In later life, Maalin volunteered for the successful poliomyelitis eradication campaign in Somalia. He worked for WHO as a local coordinator with responsibility for social mobilisation, and spent several years travelling across Somalia, vaccinating children and educating communities. He encouraged people to be vaccinated by sharing his experiences with smallpox. He died of malaria while carrying out polio vaccinations after the reintroduction of poliovirus to the country in 2013.

5 June 1981: First report of HIV/AIDS (symbol pictured) appeared in medical literature

6 June 1997: Gene silencing in plants shown to be a viral defence mechanism

7–13 June 1962: Donald Caspar and Aaron Klug proposed the quasi-equivalence principle of virus structure

7–13 June 1962: André Lwoff proposed a viral classification scheme based on nature of genome, type of symmetry and presence of envelope

7–13 June 1962: George Hirst proposed that the influenza virus genome is segmented

9 June 1981: The American Society for Virology was founded

13 June 2012: First case of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) occurred in Saudi Arabia

18 June 1981: A vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease was the first genetically engineered vaccine

21 June 1996: Nevirapine approved, first NNRTI for HIV/AIDS

26 June 1993: Clinical trial of hepatitis B virus drug fialuridine terminated; the drug caused several fatalities due to lactic acidosis

28 June 2011: FAO declared rinderpest eradicated

30 June 1985: Ryan White was denied re-admittance to his school after an AIDS diagnosis, in a case that changed public perceptions of the disease

The MMR vaccine and autism fraud refers to the false claim that the combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) might be associated with colitis and autism spectrum disorders. Multiple large epidemiological studies have since found no link between the vaccine and autism. The notion originated in a fraudulent research paper by Andrew Wakefield and co-authors, published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet in 1998. Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer's investigations revealed that Wakefield had manipulated evidence and had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest. The paper was retracted in 2010, when the Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton characterised it as "utterly false". Wakefield was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council, and struck off the UK's Medical Register. The claims in Wakefield's article were widely reported in the press, resulting in a sharp drop in vaccination uptake in the UK and Ireland. A greatly increased incidence of measles and mumps followed, leading to deaths and serious permanent injuries.

Subcategories of virology: