Abstract
Despite major discoveries made in the last few decades about Lassa fever, there are still many unresolved key issues that hamper the development of effective vaccines and therapies against this deadly disease that is endemic in several West African countries. Some of these issues include the lack of a detailed understanding of the viral and participating host factors in completing the virus life cycle, in mediating disease pathogenesis or protection from disease, and in activating or suppressing host innate and cellular immunity against virus infection, as well as of the animal models required for testing vaccines and therapeutics. This Special Issue is devoted to understanding some of these important issues and to exploring the current status of the research and development in combating Lassa fever.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 437 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-3 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | Pathogens |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements: Work in the author’s laboratory is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station. The author would like to thank all authors of the contributing articles in this Special Issue for their insights, enthusiasm, and timely contributions.
Funding Information:
NIH NIAID (R01 AI131586), USDA NIFA (2019?05384), and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station?s Rapid Agriculture Response Fund (AES00RR245).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- Adaptive immunity
- Arenavirus
- COVID‐19
- Innate immunity
- Lassa virus
- Mammarenavirus
- Pathogenesis
- Vaccine
- Virulence
