Ribavirin inhibits West Nile virus replication and cytopathic effect in neural cells

West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging mosquito-borne pathogen that was repor ted for the first time in the Western hemisphere in August 1999, when an en cephalitis outbreak in New York City resulted in 62 clinical cases and 7 de aths. WNV, for which no antiviral therapy has been described, was recently recovered from a pool of mosquitoes collected in New York City. In anticipa tion of the recurrence of WNV during the summer of 2000, an analysis was ma de of the efficacy of the nucleoside analogue ribavirin, a broad-spectrum a ntiviral compound with activity against several RNA viruses, for treatment of WNV infection, High doses of ribavirin were found to inhibit WNV replica tion and cytopathogenicity in human neural cells in vitro.