Is Virology Dead?

DiMaio, Daniel

New viruses are constantly being discovered, ranging from gigantic viruses of algae with enormous genomes to minimalistic circoviruses with barely any genome at all (30, 31) . Despite the large number of known viruses, the inventory of viruses that can infect humans is incomplete. Viruses exist in animal reservoirs that are sometimes breached, causing a disastrous spill into the human population, particularly if the new agent can efficiently be transmitted from human to human. So, with increasing frequency a new viral agent suddenly emerges and threatens us anew (32) . HIV, SARS coronavirus, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Lassa fever virus, Nipah virus, hantavirus, avian influenza viruses. Climate change appears to be expanding the geographic range of some viruses and their insect hosts, driving dengue virus and Chikungunya virus and the diseases that they cause into more temperate regions (33) . Most recently, Chikungunya virus has leaped to Europe and now to the Western Hemisphere, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus has entered the human population, causing death in approximately 40% of people with severe respiratory symptoms (34) . The MERS virus has been circulating in camels for years, but sequencing studies suggest that the proximate animal host prior to transmission to humans may have been the Egyptian tomb bat (35) . The 3,200-year-old mummy of Pharaoh Ramses V bears smallpox scars, so it would be fitting if this bat was the source of the most recent emergent viral disease.