Malaria and Some Polyomaviruses (SV40, BK, JC, and Merkel Cell Viruses)

📖 The Scoop

This volume of the IARC Monographs provides evaluations of malaria (a disease caused by infection with Plasmodium parasites) and four polyomaviruses--simian virus 40 (SV40), and BK, JC and Merkel cell viruses. The global burden of malaria is enormous, with about 50% of the world's population at risk. In regions where malaria is highly endemic (holoendemic), such as sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, a role for malaria has long been suspected in the etiology of endemic Burkitt lymphoma, which in these regions represents up to 70% of childhood cancers. In the 1950s and early 1960s, millions of people worldwide received vaccines against poliovirus that were contaminated with SV40, a polyomavirus whose natural host is the rhesus macaque. Infection with human polyomaviruses is widespread in the general population, with the proportion of adults infected ranging from 50% to more than 90% worldwide. BK and JC viruses, first isolated in 1971, are naturally human-tropic polymaviruses that are responsible for rare, lethal, nonmalignant diseases in immunosuppressed people. Merkel cell virus was discovered in 2008 in a rare skin cancer in humans. An IARC Monographs Working Group reviewed epidemiological evidence, animal bioassays, and mechanistic and other relevant data to reach conclusions as to the carcinogenic hazard to humans of these infections. -- Back cover.

Genre: Medical / Diseases (fancy, right?)