Severe lung damage caused when flu is followed by infection with measles-like virus

Infection with a measles-like virus causes catastrophic lung failure in ferrets previously infected with influenza virus or respiratory syncytial virus, according to a study by researchers in the Center for Translational Antiviral Research at Georgia State University. In the study published in Nature Communications, the researchers studied ferrets infected with a common respiratory virus such as respiratory syncytial virus or influenza virus, which results in flu-like illness in the animals. One month after full recovery, animals received a non-lethal strain of canine distemper virus (CDV), which is closely related to human measles virus and causes a measles-like disease in ferrets. Two weeks later, animals developed lethal hemorrhaging pneumonia. “Acute lung failure after consecutive infection with two non-lethal respiratory viruses was unprecedented,” said Richard Plemper, senior author of the study, Regents’ Professor in the Georgia State Institute for Biomedical Sciences and director of the Center for Translational Antiviral Research. “We found that these...