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Although West Nile virus (WNV) infection usually is asymptomatic, it occasionally causes devastating neurologic disease for which no treatment has proven successful. Because other flavivirus infections respond to intravenous immune globulin (IVIG), researchers used a mouse model of WNV infection to evaluate whether passive transfer of anti-WNV antibodies has therapeutic effects.
WNV-infected mice were bled to yield hyperimmune serum. A series of experiments confirmed that such serum effectively prevented infection (in a dose-dependent manner) in other mice when it was administered soon after viral inoculation. A similar protective effect was found when pooled serum from Israeli blood donors was used (the virus is widespread in the Middle Eas…