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British Medical Bulletin 41:391-395 (1985)
© 1985 The British Council

research-article

DANGEROUS PATHOGENS

S P Fisher-Hoch and D I H Simpson

Viral Zoonoses Laboratory Central Public Health Laboratory London
Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology The Queen's University of Belfast

Abstract

Though the high mortality rate of the dangerous viral pathogens makes them a target for therapy with drugs with even the narrowest therapeutic margins, past successes have been in prevention rather than treatment. Recently there have been grounds for more optimism, since ribavirin has now been shown to be an effective treatment for Lassa fever if started within seven days of onset of symptoms. Hyperimmune serum has only been successful in patient trials in South American haemorrhagic fevers. Despite the early hopes for interferon, its record has been disappointing, and toxicity is a serious problem.For rabies and other haemorrhagic fever viruses, we do not have clinical evidence of beneficial therapy, and extrapolation from animal studies, however encouraging, may be misleading. For the future it is posible that cytoprotective drugs may protect the microcirculation or that the disease process may be modified by manipulation of the acute immune response.


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