Nathan Wolfe Video Clip

In Biology on Thursday, we watched a video clip of a speech from Nathan Wolfe, an expert on Viral Pandemics. This video talks about HIV in particular. HIV was passed from animals to people, as were other viruses including rabies, yellow fever, SARS/ebola, and influenza. HIV enterd the human population when primate blood entered human blood. You may ask why a human ever came in contact with human blood. The answer is bushmeat. Many people, the majority in Africa, are so hungry that they go hunting for anything thay can find. It is not uncommon for one of these hunters to come across a primate, and not only does it put these animals in risk of extinction, but this is also how scientists think the HIV transfer from primates to people came about. Nathan Wolfe is responsible for the teams of scientists who track the animals and take blood tests, with the attempt to monotor HIV.  By doing so, he has identified new viruses that no one has ever seen before. His main objectives in his research and testing are to 1) prevent new viruses from spreading and 2) have global monitoring of viruses. To me, this sounds like he will be fairly (if not very) successful in his research.