The ongoing fight against viruses is fought on many fronts, including in Africa where a Slovak virologist recently won an international award for his work in identifying a particularly dangerous form of viral infection. Boris Klempa explains for us what a virus actually is, and talks about his award-winning work in Africa. The first group of three Japanese university maths students have just finished a 3-month study here in Bratislava as part of a new exchange programme sponsored by the Japanese government. They talk about their experience here and give us their impressions of Slovakia.