Diagnosing Lassa Virus Infection by Tracking the Antiviral Response

Hemorrhagic fever viruses can only be diagnosed by conventional methods when the infection has spread to the blood the patient (viremia, around 8 days after infection). We set out to determine if the transcriptional dynamics of the circulating immune cells (PBMCs) in non-human primates infected with the Lassa virus could be used as an ealier indicator of infection. We identified a strong signal of infection that appear almost 5 days earlier (3dpi) than the one detected by conventional methods.