Abstract
Little is known of the role of blood platelets in the pathogenesis of viral diseases. No viruses have yet been isolated from the platelet fraction of peripheral blood during naturally occurring or experimentally produced human infections [1-3]. However, thrombocytopenia is a prominent feature of many viral diseases, suggesting that viruses may interact with platelets so as to cause removal of platelets from the circulation [4, 5]. As a result of interaction with platelets, viruses may be protected from both virus-specific antibody and other host cells that could adsorb the virus particles and render them noninfective. Further, the formation of virus-platelet complexes may stabilize the virus by preventing thermal inactivation of viral infectivity. The present communication reports that chikungunya virus, a group A arbovirus, does form an association with human blood platelets which leads to stabilization of viral infectivity.
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