Catching the bug

Whether you have a morbid interest in mystery illnesses that leap out of the jungle, or simply want the lowdown on virus classification, there’s plenty to be found on the web on emerging infectious diseases. The majority of the online resources for ‘hot’ virology are consolidated into several outstanding sites. The best general-purpose site is David Ornstein’s Outbreak site, which provides detailed coverage of 12 infectious diseases and current information on active and past outbreaks — everything from the recent Lassa fever in Sierra Leone to Hong Kong bird ’flu. Another extremely useful resource is ProMED (Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases). The ProMED network provides information on emerging diseases as a daily digest of e-mail posts. ProMED covers all infectious diseases, of plants as well as animals, and the digests are archived in a searchable database at the Medscape and Satelife web sites. Other places to look for information on ‘hot’ viruses are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) sites. These are authoritative, if not particularly current, although both issue regular updates during severe disease outbreaks, such as the 1995 Kikwit Ebola epidemic and the outbreaks of Ebola in Gabon. The WHO site contains an Outbreaks section, and the WHO also publishes a Weekly Epidemiological Record that is available via e-mail or as a PDF file. The CDC and the National Center for Infectious Diseases publish a useful journal entitled Emerging Infectious Diseases, which is available electronically. For general virology information, All the Virology on the WWW, developed by David Sander at Tulane University, is a tremendous resource. The site includes links to the latest virology and microbial news, virology research labs, online virology courses and a useful section on emerging viruses. It also features the extensive Big Picture Book of Viruses. Several web sites present articles, essays and other virus information. The Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison provides a well-organized collection. A particularly nice part of this site is the Electron Micrograph Library of images, which also includes the immuno-gold labeling protocol. The Virology Down Under web site provides detailed profiles of many viruses and includes information on hematology and viral diagnostics. The home page of the Microbiology Department at the University of Cape Town supplies a variety of virology resources, including a Microbiological News & Views section that has comprehensive information on Ebola and on many emerging viral infectious diseases. For current virological research data, National Center for Biotechnology Information’s PubMed database provides the most up-to-date information. For current information on virus classification, the NCBI Taxonomy Home page contains an extensive section on viruses with a searchable index. The taxonomy browser allows you to follow taxonomic trees and retrieve sequence data. Several educational web sites provide basic virology information and instructional material. The Electronic Introduction to Molecular Virology, developed by Ed Rybicki, is an excellent online tutorial. Topics include virus classification, virus ultrastructure and virus entry into cells. Complementary material is provided by Alan Cann’s Virology Course lecture notes at the University of Leicester, which also feature detailed descriptions of the immune system. In addition, Jack Brown’s Bugs in the News site presents lively descriptions of several newsworthy viruses. Resources on the web can convey the realities of an outbreak of infectious disease and provide an intriguing picture of epidemiologists and virologists at work.