News: Scientists have said that COVID-19 could be a latent virus as a Delhi policeman tested positive from Covid-19 within one and a half months of having recovered.
Facts:
- What is Latent Viral Infection? It is an infection that is inactive or dormant and does not replicate within the host.However,it possesses the capacity to be reactivated at some point causing a flare-up of the disease much later.
- Is it similar to active infection? It is opposite to active infections as the virus in active infections are actively replicating and potentially causing symptoms.
- Does it spread? Latent viral infections can be reactivated into a lytic form (the replication of a viral genome).The ability to move back and forth from latent to lytic infections helps the virus spread from infected individuals to uninfected individuals
- Examples of LVI: Herpes simplex viruses type 1 and 2, varicella-zoster virus,HIV, Epstein-Barr virus(human herpesvirus 4) and cytomegalovirus.
