after getting a trojan/malware infection, i somehow managed to stop the avast warning dialog box by scanning with a malware program, however now my virus chest has many many entries… is there a way to delete these all together, or will i have to delete each individual entry ?
there is no rush to delete anything from chest… what if some are false positive!
if you can delete all in one operation i do not know…have not tried…and i am on a ipad now 
There is no rush to delete anything from the chest, a protected area where it can do no harm. Anything that you send to the chest you should leave there for a few weeks. If after that time you have suffered no adverse effects from moving these to the chest, scan them again (inside the chest) and if they are still detected as viruses, delete them.
Bearing in mind the above comments, when the time comes, try this - Open the Chest and highlight all of the files, right click in that selection of files and select Delete. I assume that this is a means of deleting multiple files within the chest - though like Pondus this is something that I have never done.