Prospects for the future in antiviral chemotherapy

Abstract

I have been asked to sum up the session on antiviral drugs and to speculate on the future prospects in antiviral chemotherapy. We have already entered the era of antiviral chemotherapy even though as yet we can trust only a small proportion of virus infections. No longer has one to be an optimist to declare that the proportion of treatable infections will increase as knowledge accumulates. Indeed, we are now in the same kind of position with the viruses that we were with the bacteria some fifty years ago. Thus if we wish to peer into the future it may be well to look back to see the way forward. There are many obvious differences between antibacterial and antiviral chemotherapy. However numerous common problems are likely to arise.KeywordsHerpes SimplexHerpes Simplex Virus TypeThymidine KinaseGenital HerpesAnimal VirusThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.