What are the symptoms of EB virus?

Epstein-Barr virus is an infectious virus of the body's lymphocytes. It usually occurs in children and is also a carcinogenic cell virus. The presence of Epstein-Barr virus can easily cause children to have loss of appetite, nausea, or vomiting. It can also easily produce certain antibodies in the body, causing the body to carry the virus, which has a great impact on children's physical health.

What are the symptoms of EBV?

1. Symptoms

EB virus infection in early childhood is generally subclinical infection, resulting in antibody production and lifelong virus carriage, which may be mild and asymptomatic or cause mild pharyngitis and upper respiratory tract infection.

Primary infection in adults is more serious than in children, and the virus may remain latent for life, but there are rarely any sequelae.

EBV infectious diseases can be divided into acute infection and chronic infection according to the course of the disease. The recovery period of this disease is relatively long, generally taking 2 to 4 weeks.

Acute infection

The clinical manifestations are complex and diverse. Generally, there are fever (the fever type may be prolonged fever, remittent fever or irregular fever), loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rash (mostly on the trunk), etc. Throat pain, bleeding spots on the soft palate and pharyngeal arches, and swollen or ulcerated gums. Some may also experience neurological symptoms.

Generalized lymphadenopathy and hepatosplenomegaly: More than 70% of patients have lymphadenopathy, with the most common being the occipital and cervical lymphadenopathy, followed by the axilla and groin. The enlarged lymph nodes subside slowly. Hepatosplenomegaly may be accompanied by mild tenderness.

Chronic infection

Active symptoms such as fever, enlarged liver, spleen, and lymph nodes recur or persist for more than several months. There is no clear underlying disease, abnormalities or other infections that could explain the symptoms. There were specific anti-EBV-Ab and EBV-DNA was detected.

2. Diagnosis

The diagnosis of EBV infection relies more on laboratory tests than other viral infections. Serological examination is still the most effective method for diagnosing CMV infection. The presence of serum anti-IgM-VCA antibodies and the subsequent gradual increase in anti-NA antibody titers indicate primary EBV infection. Recent EBv infection can be diagnosed by detecting antibodies in serum using immunoenzyme staining or immunofluorescence technology.

There are three main types of diseases caused by or related to EBV infection:

(a) Infectious mononucleosis: more common in adults.

The clinical manifestations vary, but three typical symptoms are fever, pharyngitis and cervical lymphadenopathy. Fatal infectious mononucleosis may occur in children with certain congenital immunodeficiencies.

(ii) African childhood lymphoma: more common in children aged 5 to 12 years old.

It occurs endemic in New Guinea, Central Africa, and the temperate tropical regions of America. The most common sites are the face and palate. All patients had HBV antibodies in their sera, and more than 80% of them had titers higher than normal people.

(III) Nasopharyngeal carcinoma: mostly occurs in middle-aged and elderly people over 40 years old.

HBV is closely related to nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The EBV genome is present and expressed in the cancer tissues of all cases, and high-titer EBV antigens are present in the patient's serum.