In March and early April 2009, a new, swine-origin 2009-H1N1 influenza A virus emerged in Mexico and the United States. During the first few weeks of surveillance, the virus spread by human-to-human transmission worldwide to over 30 countries. On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6 in response to the ongoing global spread of the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus. By October 30, 2009, the H1N1 influenza A had spread to 191 countries and resulted in 5,700 fatalities. A national emergency was declared in the United States and the swine flu joined SARS and the avian flu as pandemics of the 21st century. Vaccination is currently available, but in limited supply, and with a 60 percent effectiveness rate against the virus. The story of how this new influenza virus spread out of Mexico to other parts of North America and then on to Europe, the Far East, and now Australia and the Pacific Rim countries has its origins in the global interconnectedness of travel, trade, and tourism. Given the rapid spread of the virus, the international scientific, public health, security, and policy communities had to mobilize quickly to characterize this unique virus and address its potential effects. The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control have played critical roles in the surveillance, detection and responses to the H1N1 virus. The Domestic and International Impacts of the 2009-H1N1 Influenza A Pandemic: Global Challenges, Global Solutions aimed to examine the evolutionary origins of the H1N1 virus and evaluate its potential public health and socioeconomic consequences, while monitoring and mitigating the impact of a fast-moving pandemic. The rapporteurs for this workshop reported on the need for increased and geographically robust global influenza vaccine production capacities; enhanced and sustained interpandemic demand for seasonal influenza vaccines; clear "triggers" for pandemic alert levels; and accelerated research collaboration on new vaccine manufacturing techniques. This book will be an essential guide for healthcare professionals, policymakers, drug manufacturers and investigators.

In the past half century, deadly disease outbreaks caused by novel viruses of animal origin - Nipah virus in Malaysia, Hendra virus in Australia, Hantavirus in the United States, Ebola virus in Africa, along with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), several influenza subtypes, and the SARS (sudden acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) coronaviruses - have underscored the urgency of understanding factors influencing viral disease emergence and spread. Emerging Viral Diseases is the summary of a public workshop hosted in March 2014 to examine factors driving the appearance, establishment, and spread of emerging, re-emerging and novel viral diseases; the global health and economic impacts of recently emerging and novel viral diseases in humans; and the scientific and policy approaches to improving domestic and international capacity to detect and respond to global outbreaks of infectious disease. This report is a record of the presentations and discussion of the event.

Veterinary Virology deals with basic biomedical virology and the clinical discipline of infectious diseases. The book discusses the principles of virology as effecting future developments in the search for preventive and management of infectious diseases in animals, whether singly or as a whole herd or flock. Part I explains the principles of animal virology including the structure, composition, classification, nomenclature, cultivation, and assay of viruses. This part also discusses viral genetics, replication, and evolution (including mutation and genetic engineering). The book also reviews the pathogenesis of viruses, host resistance and susceptibility, as well as the mechanisms of persistent infections and tumor induction. Part II deals with viruses found in domestic animals; this part also explains in detail the properties, replication methods, pathogenesis, immunity, diagnosis, and control of some common viruses. The book discusses some other families of viruses of which no members are yet known as to have caused serious or important diseases in animals. Veterinarians, immunologists, virologists, molecular researchers, students, and academicians in the discipline of virology and cellular biology, as well as livestock owners will find this book helpful.

Splicing of primary RNA transcript is a quasi-systematic step of gene expression in higher organisms. This is the first book to highlight the medical implications, i.e. diseases, caused by alternative splicing. Alternative splicing not only vastly increases protein diversity but also offers numerous opportunities for aberrant splicing events with pathological consequences. The book also outlines possible targets for therapy.

During the past two decades, the world scientific community has witnessed major achievements in our understanding of the pathogenesis of HIV infection of the nervous system and HIV-Associated Dementia (HAD). Despite these giant gains, nervous system involvement during AIDS remains a relentlessly progressive disease with a deadly fate in many cases. This book on NeuroAIDS provides a unique resource for both general neurologists as well as basic neuroscientists with profound interests for research on NeuroAIDS. This book has special emphasis on the mechanisms of disease development and progression of HIV-infected patients with NeuroAIDS. The contributors have provided the readers with comprehensive reviews on clinical manifestations of HAD, mechanisms of HIV entry into the central nervous system, the role of cytokines and chemokines in pathogenesis of NeuroAIDS, drug abuse and NeuroAIDS, virus load in HAD, allostasis in HIV and AIDS, stroke in AIDS patients, and neuroimaging of HIV infection of the central nervous system. In addition, there are chapters on Varicella Zoster virus infection of HIV-seropositive and AIDS patients, as well as the molecular basis for opioids and AIDS virus interactions.

This book provides a definitive account of koro, a topic of long-standing interest in the field of cultural psychiatry in which the patient displays a fear of the genitals shrinking and retracting. Written by Professor A.N. Chowdhury, a leading expert in the field, it provides a comprehensive overview of the cultural, historical and clinical significance of the condition that includes both cutting-edge critique and an analysis of research and accounts from the previous 120 years published literature. The book begins by outlining the definition, etymology of the term, and clinical features of koro as a culture-bound syndrome, and contextualizes the concept with reference to its historical origins and local experience in Southeast Asia, and its subsequent widespread occurrence in South Asia. It also critically examines the concept of culture-bound disorder and the development of the terminology, such as cultural concepts of distress, which is the term that is currently used in the DSM-5. Subsequent chapters elaborate the cultural context of koro in Chinese and South Asian cultures, including cultural symbolic analysis of associations with animals (fox and turtle) and phallic imagery based on troubling self-perceived aspects of body image that is central to the concept. The second section of the book offers a comprehensive, global literature review, before addressing the current status and relevance of koro, clinically relevant questions of risk assessment and forensic issues, and research methodology. This landmark work will provide a unique resource for clinicians and researchers working in cultural psychiatry, cultural psychology, anthropology, medical sociology, social work and psychosexual medicine.