Epstein-Barr ("mononucleosis") virus as the cause of multiple sclerosis

Excerpts from a BBC article:

What leads the immune system astray has been a long and hotly debated mystery, but studies published this year have convincingly pointed the finger at the Epstein-Barr virus...

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is so common that nearly all of us can expect to catch it during our lives. Most of us won't even notice, but the virus is famous for "the kissing disease", which is also known as either glandular fever or mononucleosis. EBV has been on the list of suspects for MS for decades, but definitive proof has been hard to gather because the virus is so common and multiple sclerosis is so rare...

"Individuals who were not infected with the Epstein-Barr virus virtually never get multiple sclerosis," Prof Alberto Ascherio, from Harvard, told me.

"It's only after Epstein-Barr virus infection that the risk of multiple sclerosis jumps up by over 30-fold."

The team checked for other infections, such as cytomegalovirus, but only EBV had a crystal clear connection with the neurodegenerative disease...

Finding out if a vaccine can prevent multiple sclerosis is going to take decades of work. The earlier ambition is a "therapeutic vaccine" for people who already have MS.

Prof Giovannoni said this would be similar to the shingles vaccine, which is given to people who have already been infected with the chickenpox virus so "even though you've got the virus already, you are boosting the immune system to mount an immune response against the virus and controlling the virus itself."

Details at the link.