Viral infection

Abstract

Viral infections, particularly in the fetus or newborn and in immunocompromised individuals, can produce severe, even fatal disease. Indeed Herpesviridae infections are the major cause of morbidity and mortality in them. Antiviral drugs have been used for prophylaxis and treatment for some viral infections. An alternative approach is to boost the host immune defences. Administration of pooled human sera have been used for prophylaxis or alleviation of clinical severity of ongoing infections with measles, CMV, VZV and hepatitis A and B and so on. Human monoclonal antibody preparations, which have now being developed, may overcome the problems inherent in the pooled sera. These include high volume load, difficulty of quality control and adventitious transmission of unknown pathogenic agents.