Antiviral susceptibilities of herpes simplex virus from immunocompetent subjects with recurrent herpes labialie: a UK-based survey
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sir, Use of penciclovir and acyclovir and their respective oral prodrugs to treat herpesvirus infections has increased dramatically since the introduction of acyclovir almost 20 years ago. Nevertheless, the prevalence of acyclovirresistant herpes simplex virus (HSV) remains exceedingly low and unchanged in immunocompetent hosts.1–4 Surveys of resistance have predominantly focused on HSV isolates from genital sites, despite use of topical antivirals for recurrent herpes labialis (RHL). To address this need, we report the results from a survey of RHL isolates conducted in the UK during 1998. If antiviral treatment in the immunocompetent host were to lead to the emergence of resistance, the UK is of particular relevance, since at the time of the survey, topical acyclovir had been available for 14 years, including 5 years over-the-counter (OTC), and topical penciclovir on prescription for 2.5 years. Subjects were recruited across the UK by 54 general practitioners and at two clinical research institutions. Swabs were taken from 1304 immunocompetent subjects (aged ≥18 years) with an untreated episode of RHL at the vesiculoulcerative stage, to enable the susceptibility of naïve, reactivated virus to be assessed. Virus was isolated and typed by standard methods, and susceptibilities to acyclovir and penciclovir were measured by plaque reduction assay in Vero and MRC-5 cells, respectively. Because cell type affects absolute antiviral activity, comparisons of the susceptibility data between these two compounds are inappropriate.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".