Journal of clinical virology : the official publication of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology
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Impairment of varicella zoster virus (VZV)-specific cell-mediated immunity, including impairment due to immunosenescence, is associated with an increased risk of developing herpes zoster (HZ), whereas levels of anti-VZV antibodies do not correlate with HZ risk. This crucial role of VZV-specific cell-mediated immunity suggests that boosting these responses by vaccination will be an effective strategy for reducing the burden of HZ. Other strategies focus on preventing the major complication of HZ--post-herpetic neuralgia. These strategies include pre-emptive treatment with drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants, anticonvulsants and analgesics.
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Herpes zoster (HZ; shingles)--a reactivation of the latent varicella zoster virus (VZV)--can cause significant morbidity. Its major complication is pain, particularly post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). ⋯ New molecules in development that show improved activity against VZV are also covered, and new drug targets are outlined. The role of translational neuroscience in moving towards a goal of finding disease-modifying treatments will be examined.
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Herpes zoster (HZ) is a common condition that affects all age groups and both immunocompetent and immunocompromised individuals. However, it mainly impacts elderly and immunocompromised people and is associated with important and sometimes permanent detriment to quality of life and activities of daily living. ⋯ Despite increasing knowledge of the pathology causing PHN, the management modalities for acute HZ pain and PHN remain inadequate. Public, and probably physician, understanding of HZ and its complications is poor, potentially leading to low utilisation of HZ vaccination and delayed presentation for treatment.
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The occurrence of herpes zoster can deteriorate the quality of life considerably, resulting in high disease burden. While Korea is assumed to have high disease burden of herpes zoster, there has been no researches analyzing this. ⋯ There is a heavy socioeconomic burden due to herpes zoster in Korea and indicate that appropriate policies need to be established to reduce this burden. Additional researches are also necessary to assess the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a herpes zoster vaccine in the Korean population.
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Comparative Study
Performance of laboratory diagnostics for the detection of influenza A(H1N1)v virus as correlated with the time after symptom onset and viral load.
To diagnose influenza A(H1N1)v virus infection, accurate and rapid detection are important. However, there is scanty data on the performance of various laboratory diagnostics. ⋯ Although viral shedding is prolonged and of higher titre in influenza A(H1N1)v infection, RAT showed a low sensitivity of 62% among patients presenting < or =3 days after symptom onset. Viral culture showed comparable performance with RT-PCR and with sensitivity better than that documented for seasonal influenza.