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Medicine Facts

SARS: Mother Nature Strikes Again!

SARS, short for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is big news this spring. By the middle of April 2003, over 2000 people had been diagnosed with it in China and Hong Kong, another few hundred in the ... Continue reading

Fighting Viruses

Viral diseases can be very difficult to treat because viruses live inside the body's cells where they are protected from medicines in the blood stream. Researchers developed the first antiviral drug ... Continue reading

Electron micrograph of Ebola virus.

Mother Nature's Own Brand of Bioterror

We've been hearing a lot about smallpox lately, as a possible bioterror attack. But Mother Nature has her own brand of bioterror. Smallpox has been with us for about ten thousand years, since the ... Continue reading

Smallpox was active in ancient Egypt.

The Plague

Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The bacterium is found mainly in rodents, particularly rats, and in the fleas that feed on them. Other animals and humans ... Continue reading

Prairie dogs sometimes carry plague.