Portal:Viruses/Did you know/13

...that derivatives of diamond-like compound adamantane (model pictured) are used as drugs against flu and Parkinson's disease?
...that for 36 years, only two polyomaviruses were known to infect humans?
...that Ali Maow Maalin was the last person in the world to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox?
...that in his 2005 book Race Against Time, the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis claimed the spread of AIDS across Africa is partly due to a succession of disastrous economic policies promoted by international financial institutions?
...that his son's infection with polio in 1930 led electrical engineer Reinhold Rudenberg to develop an electron microscope as a tool to study the poliovirus?