Medical Virology Reference
Clear, current, properly-linked answers.
Curated from reference texts, guidelines and the literature.
Anchored in the South African clinical and laboratory context, reaching outward to WHO standards and the international literature.
Browse topicsor the A–Z of viruses →Topics
Foundational Virology
The stable core of the discipline: how viruses are classified and named, how virions are built, how they replicate, and how they evolve. The foundational layer that the rest of the reference rests on.
Viral Immunology
The immune system as virological principle. How innate and adaptive responses recognise and clear viral infection, the evasion strategies persistent viruses deploy in return, and the clinical syndromes that arise when the response itself becomes the pathology or fails entirely.
Viral Pathogenesis
How virus infection becomes disease: the journey of a virus through the host, the viral and host factors that decide the outcome, and the patterns that infection settles into.
Viral Oncogenesis
How some viruses cause cancer: direct oncogenesis through viral oncoproteins that disable the cell's growth controls, and indirect oncogenesis through chronic inflammation and failed immune surveillance. The shared biology, and the tumour viruses that drive it.
Diagnostic Virology
How a virological diagnosis is made: detecting the virus directly by its antigen or nucleic acid, or inferring infection indirectly from the antibody response, and choosing between them by the clinical question, the stage of illness, and the trade-off between sensitivity and specificity.
Antivirals
The drugs that treat viral infection: how antiviral selectivity is achieved, the agents grouped by the viruses they treat, the principles of resistance, and how the choice between them is made.
Viral Vaccines
How vaccines prevent viral disease: the platforms that present viral antigen to the immune system, how vaccination is run as a programme, and the passive antibody products that protect when there is no time to wait for a vaccine.
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus, the agent of the AIDS pandemic: the virology, the antiretroviral drugs that suppress it, the resistance the laboratory must interpret, the operational South African programme, and the global path to ending the epidemic.
Viral Hepatitis
Inflammation of the liver caused by the five hepatitis viruses (A to E): five very different agents that converge on one organ and one clinical syndrome. The shared acute picture and how to read it, the definitions of chronic and fulminant disease, the differential, and the serological markers that tell the viruses apart.
Viral Respiratory Infections
The viral infections of the respiratory tract: the syndromes that run from the common cold down to pneumonia, the viruses that cause each, and why the same virus can cause several syndromes while one syndrome can be caused by many viruses.
Viral Syndromes by Organ System
Viral disease organised by the organ system it strikes: the gut, the heart, the skin, the genital and urinary tract, and the eye. Each article is a syndromic overview of the viruses that target that system, the clinical approach to them, and how they are told apart; the individual agents are covered in depth in their own profiles.
Viral CNS Infections
Viral infections of the brain, meninges and spinal cord: an uncommon but high-stakes group in which the clinical task is to separate the few treatable causes from the many that are self-limited or untreatable.
Viral Infections in Pregnancy & Neonate
Viral infection of the pregnant woman, fetus and newborn, where the timing of acquisition decides whether a virus deforms the fetus, overwhelms the neonate, or passes harmlessly.
Immunocompromised Patients
Viral infection in the immunocompromised host: why a weakened immune system reshapes how viruses behave, which defect predisposes to which virus, and the patient groups that matter most, from solid-organ and stem-cell transplant recipients to advanced HIV.
Emerging Diseases & Zoonoses
How and why viruses emerge and cross from animals to people: the drivers of emergence and spillover, the viral evolution that powers host-jumping, and the surveillance and outbreak systems that contain them, with overview articles for two large virus groups, the arboviruses and the hantaviruses.
Polio
Poliomyelitis and its virus: the enterovirus that paralyses, the acute flaccid paralysis surveillance system built to find it, the oral and inactivated vaccines that control it, and the global programme closing in on eradication.
Rabies
Rabies: the prototype neurotropic zoonotic viral encephalomyelitis. Near-universal fatality once symptoms begin; fully preventable by timely post-exposure prophylaxis. The virus itself, the related lyssaviruses, and the operational South African prophylaxis framework.
Travel-Associated Viral Infections
The viral infections that matter when people cross borders: the pre-travel consultation that prevents them, the vaccines demanded, recommended and reviewed for travellers, and the approach to the returning traveller who falls ill.
Infection Prevention & Control
Breaking the chain of viral transmission in the healthcare facility and the laboratory: the Spaulding logic that decides how hard an item must be reprocessed, and the standard-plus-transmission-based precautions that stop spread between patient, worker and environment.
Laboratory Health & Safety
Laboratory biosafety in clinical virology: containment scaled to the hazard of the agent, the biological safety cabinets and practices that protect the worker and the environment, the rules for transporting infectious substances, and the South African regulatory frame that governs it all.
Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers
The viral haemorrhagic fever syndrome and the four virus families that cause it, the shared pathophysiology of vascular leak and coagulopathy, the structured approach to a suspected case, and the operational pathway for recognising, safely handling and notifying a suspected case.
Viral Epidemiology
How viral disease is measured, studied and spread in populations: the measures of disease frequency, the study designs that establish cause, the routes and dynamics of transmission, and the reproduction number and herd immunity that govern whether a virus persists or fades.