Two types of transmissible cancer have been described in Tasmanian devils, marsupial carnivores endemic to the Australian island of the same name.

Eleven authors published an article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet suggesting an apparent link between the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism. This news bomb led to the Wakefield scandal.

Since the late 1920s, a number of HIV vaccine strategies have been discarded, but research continues with phase I vaccine prototypes.

The covid-19 pandemic has altered the infection routines of other respiratory diseases and, in some cases, has made us more vulnerable. The ancestral method of immunisation in pre-vaccination times was, precisely, infection.

Epidemiological surveillance of viruses based on wastewater is a very useful tool for studying diseases, as is the case with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Poliomyelitis cases have increased globally in the last year. The oral polio vaccine is very effective and acts on the first line of defence.

While it would be unwise to consider SARS-CoV-2 as evolutionarily exhausted, it is beginning to struggle to find new evolutionary improvements.

We remember June Almeida, the first person to photograph a human coronavirus.

The WHO published recommendations on how to name new infectious diseases to avoid stigmatising a country, community, or economic sector.

Our intelligence may be the only recourse against emerging infectious diseases like SARS-CoV-2.