About 25% of subjects with West Nile virus (WNV) infection develop fever and about 1% have neuroinvasive disease. Recent research has proposed measuring CD169 in peripheral blood (monocyte/lymphocyte ratio) as a marker of viral infections. The usefulness of monocyte CD169 (mCD169) in peripheral blood was tested in subjects with active WNV infection.
A study led by Australian researchers at the University of Queensland has shown that a newly developed antibody targets the flavivirus nonstructural protein 1 and was shown to reduce viremia and improve survival in mouse models of dengue, Zika and West Nile infections.
