Does the Epstein Barr Virus Affect The Respiratory?
What diseases does the virus cause? The Epstein-Barr virus is thought to be responsible for a number of diseases in addition to glandular fever (otherwise known as infectious mononucleosis) and Burkitt’s lymphoma. One of these is nasopharyngeal carcinoma: this is a tumour of the nasal passages and throat which affects up to 2 per cent of people in southern China and also occurs in Southeast Asia, northern Africa and among Arctic peoples. It has been proposed as a possible cause of Hodgkin’s disease (a type of cancer affecting cells of lymph nodes). Diseases caused by the virus are particularly common among people with reduced immunity. For example, the virus is associated with ‘post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease’, a tumour often found in organ transplant patients. The immune systems of such patients are usually suppressed artificially by drug therapy to help prevent the body from rejecting the new organ. AIDS sufferers, who also have reduced immunity, commonly suffer from ‘ora
