Borna Virus

[Mike Sussman]

In article <4nqrie$rmd at eplet.mira.net.au> profpuk at werple.mira.net.au. (Len) writes:
>From: profpuk at werple.mira.net.au. (Len)
>Subject: Re: Borna Virus
>Date: 20 May 1996 22:26:22 GMT

>Dear Dennis

>I think there are two points here.

>Humans having Borna virus specific antibodies:

>If you test any population with an antibody test one will always have
>false positives, depending on how good the test is, so a specificity of
>say 95% would not be entirely unusual in a research based assay EIA.
>Hence having 4% of the population antibody positive may not be entirely
>unusual with an EIA. One needs to validate these reactive samples,
>ideally with a neutralisation assay.

>Lets assume, though, that this has been done and the antibodies
>detected are truly Borna virus specific. My own feeling is that to have
>an antibody response in this situation would mean that at some stage
>there had at least been some limited viral replication to initiate the
>antibody response. However assuming the virus is cleared relatively
>rapidly I would argue that it is unlikely to cause chronic disease
>unless one evokes some auto-immune pradigm (Although the infection may
>be associated with an acute illness).

>Chronic carriage of an RNA virus:

>I was unaware of the data showing that a general population had a
>prevalence of 4% Borna virus RNA carriage rate. (Could I have the
>reference). I guess that this could all represent acute self limiting
>disease, but that would be unusual. So, lets assume that at least a
>proportion are chronic carriers. I firmly believe that it is unlikely
>that one could be a chronic carrier of an RNA virus and not develop a
>disease syndrome, eventually. The only real model we have for this is
>hepatitis C virus, and I would argue that most people that are infected
>will eventually develop disease (contentious).

>I guess as virologists we all know that viruses will ultimately be
>found to cause all disease and I think the Borna virus story is
>exciting.

>Any one out there who wants to debate whether you can have a 'latent'
>RNA virus infection is welcome to enter into a discussion,

>Len Moaven

I thought that BVD was Bovine Viral Diarrhea.  I have seen references that 
have shown humans with serum positvie for BVDV.  It was brought to my 
attention, however, that this positive may be for a human pestivirus and not a 
vagopestivirus.
Mike