Viral Loads

Drawing upon the empirical scholarship and research expertise of contributors from all settled continents and from diverse life settings and economies, Viral Loads illustrates how the COVID-19 pandemic, and responses to it, lay bare and load onto people’s lived realities in countries around the world. A crosscutting theme pertains to how social unevenness and gross economic disparities are shaping global and local responses to the pandemic, and illustrate the effects of both the virus and efforts to contain it in ways that amplify these inequalities. At the same time, the contributions highlight the nature of contemporary social life, including virtual communication, the nature of communities, neoliberalism and contemporary political economies, and the shifting nature of nation states and the role of government. Over half of the world’s population has been affected by restrictions of movement, with physical distancing requirements and self-isolation recommendations impacting profoundly on everyday life but also on the economy, resulting also, in turn, with dramatic shifts in the economy and in mass unemployment. By reflecting on how the pandemic has interrupted daily lives, state infrastructures and healthcare systems, the contributing authors in this volume mobilise anthropological theories and concepts to locate the pandemic in a highly connected and exceedingly unequal world. The book is ambitious in its scope – spanning the entire globe – and daring in its insistence that medical anthropology must be a part of the growing calls to build a new world.

Viruses are widely present in nature, and numerous viral species with a variety of unique characteristics have been identified so far. Even now, new emerging or re-emerging viruses are being found or re-found as novel viral classes or as quasi-species. Indeed, viruses are everywhere. Of note, viruses are pivotal as targets and tools of basic and applied sciences. On one hand, portions of the viruses are infectious for animals including humans, and cause various diseases in infected hosts by distinct mechanisms and at a different level of severity. While many of viruses are known to co-exist quietly with their hosts, pathogenic viruses certainly affect and threaten our society as well as individuals to provoke serious medical or economic attention. We should act against certain dreadful and highly infectious viruses as a global problem. Animal RNA viruses can readily mutate to adapt themselves in their hostile environments for their survival. Resultant viruses may sometimes show essentially altered phenotypes from the original parental strains. This fundamental and general property of animal RNA viruses represents major extensive issues of scientific, medical, and/or economic importance. In this Research Topic, we have focused on the high mutability of animal RNA viruses, and selected relevant articles on animal viruses of broad-ranges such as primate lentiviruses, influenza viruses, paramyxoviruses, flaviviruses, rabies virus, norovirus, picornaviruses, and picobirnavirus. Each article has taken up intriguing aspects of the subject viruses. We are sure that readers acquire important information on virus mutation, adaptation, diversification, and evolution, and hope that researchers in the field related to virology gain some solid hints from the reported articles for further virological and /or medical studies. Finally, we thank all the contributing researchers in this Research Topic, entitled “Highly Mutable Animal RNA Viruses: Adaptation and Evolution”, for their elegant and interesting works.

Multiple viruses can be detected concurrently using the Integrated Virus Detection System (IVDS). Integrated Virus Detection describes this technology and provides many examples of applications including a chapter on viruses found in honeybees with descriptions of seasonal and yearly variation. This straightforward technology can be used to detect known, unknown, and unsequenced viruses collected from environmental and other complex biological sources. This book summarizes more than ten US patents issued for the invention of the IVDS, which is the common name of the electrospray–differential mobility analyzer method. The IVDS is powering mankind’s ability to rapidly detect, measure, and monitor viruses as well as virus-like particles. Three facts make rapid detection possible: virus size, which ranges from 20 to 800 nm.; disparity in each virus species’ particle size thus allowing size data to be used for detection and preliminary identification; and the fact that virus particle density is distinct from other nanoparticles. The IVDS can ascertain the absence of virion particles, thus presenting compelling evidence of a true negative, which is useful in verifying decontamination and other processes. In addition, large numbers of samples may be processed in an automated fashion, providing an excellent means to prescreen them for judicious targeting of subsequent tests such as PCR or the discriminating method for identifying microbes, which is mass spectrometry proteomics.* The book is helpful to anyone interested in virus detection, especially in situations where many viral types may coexist. *Identifying Microbes by Mass Spectrometry Proteomics (CRC Press 2013)

The Social Security Administration (SSA) uses a screening tool called the Listing of Impairments to identify claimants who are so severely impaired that they cannot work at all and thus qualify for disability benefits. In this report, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) makes several recommendations for improving SSA's capacity for determining disability benefits more accurately and quickly using the HIV Infection Listings.

In its updated and expanded second edition, this helpful guide offers a wealth of information for people living with HIV and for people caring for HIV-positive loved ones. All aspects of HIV/AIDS are discussed, including opportunistic and associated infections, dental care, exercise and nutrition, substance use and abuse and emotional treatment. New information will help the newly diagnosed adjust to their illness and long-term survivors to improve their quality of life. Up-to-date discussion of the latest medications covers the growing practice of using HIV drugs as preventatives. Essential Internet resources are provided that help patients live a longer, healthier life.