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- West Nile is a virus most commonly spread to people by mosquito bites.
- In North America, cases of West Nile virus (WNV) occur during mosquito season, which starts in the summer and continues through fall.
- WNV cases have been reported in all of the continental United States. There are no vaccines to prevent or medications to treat WNV in people.
- Fortunately, most people infected with WNV do not have symptoms.
- About 1 in 5 people who are infected develop a fever and other symptoms.
- About 1 out of 150 infected people develop a serious, sometimes fatal, illness.
- Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and colleagues have isolated a human monoclonal antibody that can “neutralize” the West Nile virus and potentially prevent a leading cause of viral encephalitis (brain inflammation) in the United States.
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- antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system that target a specific foreign object (antigen).
- They are called monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs) when they are produced by clones derived from a single parent cell.
- Monoclonal antibodies have a high affinity for their epitope, the specific site of the protein they bind to
- Encephalitis is an acute inflammation (swelling) of the brain usually resulting from either a viral infection or due to the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacking brain tissue.
- Their findings, reported this week in the journal Nature Microbiology, could lead to the first effective treatment for this mosquito-transmitted infection, which sickens 2,500 and kills more than 100 people throughout the country each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC).
- “West Nile virus is still an important cause of brain infections in the U.S
- “It was exciting for us to use our antibody discovery technologies to find naturally occurring human antibodies that can prevent or treat the infection
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