Influenza and SARS

Airborne transmission refers to infections that are contracted from airborne micro-organisms such as dust, which can transmit spores of Clostridium Difficile or aerosol droplets which can hold tuberculosis or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (Ulrich and Wilson, 2006). Hospital air quality plays a decisive role in affecting the concentration of pathogens in the air, and thereby has major effects on the frequency of airborne infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, influenza and SARS. When ventilation systems are contaminated or break down, the consequences can be extremely serious. In one outbreak, for example, the ventilation grilles in two patient bays were found to be harbouring MRS A (Kumari et al, 1998). Whenever this ventilation system... 

Social network analysis has been a growing area of the social sciences recently for many reasons Internet social activities that can be automatically instrumented and analyzed Peer-to-Peer file exchanges, chat, blogs, and collective development such as Wikipedia and Open-Source Software projects intelligence agencies seeking to discover terrorist networks monitoring to detect and contain outbreaks of diseases such as avian influenza and SARS. 

The stakes of social network analysis are rising intelligence agencies struggle to discover terrorist networks or epidemiologists to detect and contain outbreaks of diseases such as avian influenza and SARS. 

Smallpox, however, was not the only disease that wreaked havoc as it traversed the globe. In the Middle Ages, bubonic plague reduced the population of Europe by a third after arriving there from the steppes of Eurasia (McNeil 1976). In the nineteenth century, cholera spread around the globe (McNeil 1976). In the twentieth century, diseases such as influenza, HIV, and SARS have traveled with the speed of jet planes. 

Another virus, of the coronavirus type, has made headline news under the name SARS. It seems to be a disease that has crossed species boundaries, from animals to humans. This disease appears not to kill its victims directly but sets up a storm of immunochemicals in the body called cytokines. These are inflammatory materials and can be more deadly than the virus itself in large quantities. Influenza and pneumonia use the same technique.20 The bird flu of 1997 and 2004 seems to have crossed the animal-human species barrier and has created an urgent need for research into counteracting this problem. 

In addition to MALDI-TOF and LC-MS/MS, SELDI-TOF-MS can also be used to determine expression profiling of various biological samples, such as serum or plasma for early detection of infection. Serum proteomic profiling assay, for instance, has been used to distinguish patients with acute SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) from patients with fever and influenza with 100% accuracy [16]. A major limitation of SELDI-TOF-MS, however, is that it cannot be used for direct amino acid sequence identification of the biomarker proteins, necessitating further sample fractionation and protein purification. 

In the early years of the 21st century, we have witnessed the spread of diseases quickly from one country to another, whether via human beings in the case of SARS, or through migrating livestock as evidenced by the proliferation of avian influenza across national borders in addition to the cases of Ebola outbreak in Africa. These situations necessitated prompt and skillful control at early stages by more than one or a few countries alone, and in concerted effort to contain the spread. 

The discovery of Zanamivir as a potent and selective inhibitor of influenza virus sialidase prompted several researchers to investigate the synthesis and structure-activity relationship studies of Neu5Ac2en-based compounds as potential sialidase inhibitors. Exploration of these SAR studies were undertaken to optimize inhibitory activity and to improve the physicochemical properties of the sialic acid-based influenza virus sialidase inhibitor. A few in vitro assays are commonly employed to measure the effectiveness of influenza virus sialidase inhibitors. The first involves a fluorometric assay that measures release of a synthetic fluorophore following its cleavage from Neu5Ac by sialidase. Dye-uptake assay, such as the Neutral Red uptake assay, measures the uptake of a vital stain, Neutral Red in cell culture. The process requires intact membranes and active metabolism in the cell, and is expressed as percent protective rate against virus infection. The plaque-reduction assay is used to measure sialidase inhibition indirectly in cell culture, and provides some measure of the inhibitor s effect on the viability of the influenza virus. In vitro and in vivo systems for analysis of inhibitors of influenza virus enzymes have been reviewed.71... 

In the challenge to develop potent influenza virus sialidase inhibitors, a large amount of research has been dedicated to the manipulation of every position on 11 except C3. Structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies carried out on compounds derived from 11 before and during the development of zanamivir (reviewed in [101-103]) revealed structural requirements to conserve the main interactions between the substrate inhibitor and the active site of NA, particularly with regards to the carboxylate, C4-guanidino, and C5-acetamido moieties. 

Eee, P., Krilov, E. (2005). When animal viruses attack SARS and avian influenza. Pediatric Armais, 34(1), 43-52. 

The emergence of new or newly recognized pathogens such as Nipah vims, Ebola vims, Marburg virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) corona vims, and influenza A/H5N1 vims... 

Intravenous and/or aerosol ribavirin has been used occasionally in treating severe influenza virus infection and in the treatment of immunosuppressedpatients with adenovirus, vaccinia, parainfluenza, or measles virus infections. Aerosolized ribavirin reduces duration of fever but has no other beneficial effects in influenza infections in hospitalized children. Intravenous ribavirin decreases mortality in Lassa fever and has been used in treating other arenavirus-related hemorrhagic fevers. Intravenous ribavirin is beneficial in hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome owing to hantavirus infection but ineffective in hantavirus-associated cardiopulmonary syndrome or SARS. 

The first effective and safe treatments for Alzheimer s, Parkinson s, chronic graft rejection, permanent graft acceptance, obesity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis, and vaccines [common cold, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), AIDS, malaria. Avian Influenza, radiation, contraception, emerging new infections] will be multibillion-dollar products [15,16]. 

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