"Are we better prepared?" asks @EckerleIsabella as she closes #SSM @SwissMicrobe with her keynote on challenges in prevention & preparedness for emerging viruses.
#SARSCoV2 & #monkeypox have highlighted these issues; what do we know & where do we stand?

1/N Image
Perhaps particularly of note are viruses that aren't entirely new, but keep popping up, or appear in new hosts, new places, or with new symptoms a while after identification. How & how often does this happen?

Others we know well & have fought before, but appear again!

2/N Image
Understanding viral emergence is also not just for viral biologists: there are so many factors that provide influence, from that virus and host to environmental, anthropic, and human-animal interface.

3/N Image
In #SARSCoV2 we have moved from a phase of very unexpected variants to one with many Omicron "babies". What might dominate next -- will it be the same everywhere? We see a lot happening but exact prediction is difficult.

4/N Image
What about #influenza #flu ? We saw little circulation during COVID measures, but it's made a big reappearance. This alone is a lot of pressure on hospitals & a lot of illness. What can we expect in the North, what should try & prepare for?

5/N Image
And of course... Emerging viruses are part of larger and interconnected issues like #climatechange & biodiversity loss - along with changing use of land - and misinformation, fragmentation of our societies, & loss of trust.

6/N ImageImage
"We are jumping from virus to virus but never take time to invest in understanding & surveillance to fully understand them."
Surveillance often falls in a gap: research sees it as public health, public health sees it as research - nobody funds it though we would all benefit!

7/N Image
And a great quote to finish.
"Any new disease that is emerging faster than our understanding is never under control."

I would argue it can also be applied to "old" viruses that may reappear and/or change faster than we can keep up!!

Fantastic talk by @EckerleIsabella! 🙌
8/N Image

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More from @firefoxx66

Sep 2
Recently I've heard from collaborators in the US & Europe that #Enterovirus #D68 #EVD68 cases are on the rise.

EV-D68 is what I worked on pre-pandemic, & hope to go back to.
A significant autumn 2022 wave has been a recent concern.

So what is D68 & what might this mean?

1/17 From https://syndromictrend...
#EVD68 is a Picornavirus - a diverse family of viruses. And Enteroviruses are pretty diverse themselves: from Poliovirus, which can cause serious neurological illness, to Rhinovirus - what's behind the common cold 🤧 (and even more in between).

2/17 Image
One of the most notable things about #EVD68 is that in Europe & North America it's historically had biennial autumn outbreaks: in 2014, 2016, & 2018. Also predicted in 2020... but that didn't happen due to pandemic!
Following that pattern, 2022 would be an outbreak season🗓️

3/17 Image
Read 18 tweets
Aug 30
Submitting to @NCBI can be intimidating -- but no more! Getting your #monkeypox sequences up is as simple as following this guide!

Thanks to NCBI & of course to all scientists worldwide contributing to #opendata #openscience
Why is #opendata useful? It's much easier for scientists to share, create tools for, & publicly analyze open sequences.
For example, @Nextstrain creates the #monkeypox builds with open data & provides curated seqs+meta

nextstrain.org/monkeypox/hmpx…

github.com/nextstrain/mon…
@mpxv_lineages uses open data to designate lineages & @GenSpectrum uses open data for the API & website

github.com/mpxv-lineages/…

mpox.genspectrum.org
Read 4 tweets
Aug 26
Our paper on relabelling the internal clades of the #monkeypox to be non-geographical, & proposing a new lineage naming system within Clade IIb, is now out in @PLOSBiology 🙌🏻
This has been an international effort I'm humbled to be part of.

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar…

1/8
Because it seems like there's a lot of misunderstanding around this paper/proposal - our paper does *not* touch on renaming the #monkeypox virus itself.
We focus on switching to more structured, non-stigmatizing & standardized naming within the virus phylogeny.

2/8
Contrary to what many people believe, there are long-standing efforts to name new viruses, & re-label old virus-related terms (like clades/lineages/strains), to avoid potentially stigmatizing & often inaccurate names. But previously, you didn't hear of it in the media! 😁

3/8
Read 8 tweets
Aug 12
📣CoVariants.org Update!📣

To help your Friday be fantastic 😎, I'm happy to say that we've updated CoVariants with awesome new graphs that load on-demand, speeding up the browsing experience!

HUGE thanks to @richgoater for implementing! 🎉🙏🏻

1/3
With this new addition, graphs now load dynamically as you scroll, speeding up overall loading time & reducing the overhead (especially on older mobile devices 📱).
Check it out on covariants.org/per-country, or the Per Variant or Cases pages!

2/3
As we try to graph more data from more places over longer times, we're always interested in improving our graphs & website!
If you'd like to help, check out the issues on our Github or reach out with an idea - we love contributions! 🥰

3/3

github.com/hodcroftlab/co…
Read 4 tweets
Aug 5
Monkeypox:
- We've had warnings about it for years
- We have a vaccine
- We have antivirals
- We have experience w poxviruses

Pandemic Preparedness is a buzzword right now, but if we don't seem to be prepared to effectively combat #monkeypox... Is that what we want?

1/
I am not implying that combatting #monkeypox is easy - & the current outbreak has plenty new to figure out (cryptic transmission, new presentation & lesion locations, MSM spread, ABOBEC mutations).

But we've had so much opportunity to be better prepared than we seem to be.

2/
Very few viruses arrive with the headlines they do in movies.
But #monkeypox really did send heralds for years before the current outbreaks. 📣 The waning of smallpox vaccines. The signs of ongoing transmission.

So what should we be doing better?

3/
Read 6 tweets
Jul 27
🎉CoVariants.org Update!🎉

22D (BA.2.75) is now available on CoVariants! It's visible as part of Per Country & Per Variant plots, on the shared mutation page - and of course, has a page of its own!

1/8

#BA275 #centaurus

covariants.org/variants/22D.O…
This is in line with the recent addition of 22D (BA.2.75) as a @nextstrain clade - read more on that below! 👇🏻

2/8

On the 22D page, you can read about some initial 22D / BA.2.75 work on things like immune-evasion, see a list of defining mutations, a plot of the variant growth, link to Aquaria protein viz, & see a list of other mutations present in the variant.

3/8

covariants.org/variants/22D.O…
Read 8 tweets

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