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Viral infection is the invasion of the body by a small agent known as a virus. Viruses replicate inside host cells and can produce toxins that cause disease. The immune system helps to destroy viruses, but antiviral immune responses can also cause tissue damage and illness.
SARS-CoV-2 infection can be associated with ‘brain fog’ and persistent neurologic disease, especially in the elderly, with the possibility of direct viral particle interference with normal synaptic transmission.
Encephalitis is a rare and severe complication of Herpes Simplex type 1 infection. Here, Bibert et al describe a genetic variant in a 2-year-old affected child that impairs interferon production in neuronal cells and enhances viral replication.
This Perspective discusses the basic biology, evolution and transmission of poxviruses, in particular monkeypox virus, and how this can help predict and manage potential future outbreaks.
Here, based on a systematic review and meta-analysis, the authors analyze the relationship between vaccine immunogenicity and vaccine protection against mpox and predict the durability of protection after vaccination. This helps inform the optimal vaccine deployment in a health emergency.
Public health and social measures for COVID-19 also impacted the incidence of other infectious diseases. In this study, the authors characterise the impacts of these measures on 24 notifiable infectious diseases in China until December 2023.
The World Health Organization framework for tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants has been updated to reflect the continued evolution of the virus; this framework could be adapted for other emerging respiratory diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential.
SARS-CoV-2 infection can be associated with ‘brain fog’ and persistent neurologic disease, especially in the elderly, with the possibility of direct viral particle interference with normal synaptic transmission.
Profiling of plasma proteins in individuals with COVID-19 shows that complement activation and myeloid inflammation are major pathways in the pathogenesis of long COVID and identifies distinct profiles of immune dysregulation in individuals with long COVID, highlighting the heterogeneous and diverse nature of this disease.
The implementation of PCR tests of pooled saliva samples for universal screening of congenital cytomegalovirus infection was assessed in 15,805 neonates over 13 months. This extensive analysis revealed the high feasibility and empirical efficiency of the pooled testing approach, which had a clinically insignificant loss of sensitivity.
T cell- and antibody-based immunological protection are generally considered to function together, but data now show how T cells conferred by previous SARS-CoV-2 infection or two-dose vaccination can elicit heterologous protection in mice against subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection, even in the absence of antibodies.