Vol 54, No 6 (2009)

The fact that asymptomatic and subclinical isolation of the virus in the infected, which is, according to the data of different authors, noted in 50-90% of cases, presents the highest hazard to the spread of herpesvirus infection may be now considered to be proven. The development of assisted reproductive technologies have led to the active study of the factor of male infertility in marriage, including that of the negative impact of asymptomatic infection caused by herpes simplex virus (HSV) on spermatogenesis. At the same time, there is no consent of opinion as to the implication of asymptomatic HSV in female reproductive dysfunction. The presented review attempts to analyze the data available in the literature on the detection of HSV in the reproductive organs of a woman without a history of the clinical episodes of the disease and to assess a role of HSV infection in the development of female infertility.

Herpesvirus type 8 or Kaposi's sarcoma-associated virus has been recently discovered and it is an etiologic agent of several known diseases. It has common features that link it with other representatives of the family Herpesviridae: similar structural elements and genomic organization, and the common mechanisms of replication. Nevertheless, this virus has a number of unique features that make it an interesting matter for investigations and currently central in modern medicine and biology. This overview is to draw attention to this representative of herpesviruses and to outline some epidemiological, pathogenetic, and molecular aspects of this problem.

A kit of specific oligonucleotide primers and hybridization probes has been proposed to detect orthopoxviruses (OPV) and to discriminate human pathogenic viruses, such as variola virus and monkey virus by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). For real-time PCR, the following pairs of fluorophore and a fluorescence quencher were used: TAMRA-BHQ2 for genus-specific probes and FAM-BHQ1 for species-specific ones (variola virus, monkeypox virus, ectomelia virus). The specificity of this assay was tested on 38 strains of 6 OPV species and it was 100%.

The efficacy of the antiviral agents nucleoside analogues manufactured in Russia and foreign countries against Bolivian hemorrhagic fever in the treatment and rapid prevention regimens was studied in guinea pigs. In rapid prevention and treatment of guinea pigs, the intraperitoneal injection of 1/10 of the equivalent dose of vero-ribavirin for this animal species was ascertained to protect 70% of the animals infected with Machupo virus strain Carvallo in doses 8 and 10 LD50.