The Role of Virology in the Biology Curriculum

In the 21st century, post coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, virology has been, and continues to be, in the public eye. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic globally has affected political, economic, social, policy, and health aspects. Transformative breakthroughs in the field of virology such as disease prevention, vaccines, drug therapy, and cancer research have continued to improve all aspects of human health. Yet, with all these breakthroughs, high school curriculum and pedagogy have not adequately kept up with the majority of basic virology principles. In today’s modern world, post COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to consider introducing basic and modern principles of virology to high school students. In this paper, a systematic literature review was performed to identify, assess, and evaluate high school biology and health curricula to see whether modern principles of virology were included in the curriculum, as reported by the selected scientific publications. This study also highlights several challenges for implementing modern principles of virology to pave the way for further research.