[Study of the effectiveness of recombinant alpha2-interferon and its inducers in primates with orthopoxvirus infection].

The interferon-inducing and antiviral activities of high-molecular interferon inducers larifan and rifastin and of gene engineering human alpha 2-interferon were studied in monkeys infected with smallpox. These agents appreciably prolonged the life span of infected monkeys. For green monkeys the drug efficacies were as follows: larifan protected 50%, rifastin 86%, and realderon 50% (if used for treatment) and 80% (if used for urgent prophylaxis) of animals from death; for Papio hamadryas the efficacy of urgent prophylaxis was 60%.

[Experimental Lassa fever in hamadryas baboons].

Intramuscular or aerogenic inoculation of baboons with Lassa virus reproduced a severe form of the disease which clinically, pathoanatomically and virologically resembles the severe form of human Lassa fever reported in the literature. The severity of monkey infection is demonstrated by rapid development of symptoms of general toxicity in the presence of fever, manifestations of hemorrhagic diathesis, high level of viremia and isolation of the causative agent from nasopharyngeal washings.

[The therapeutic efficacy of ribamidil and virazole in experimental Lassa fever in monkeys].

The therapeutic efficacy of ribamydil and virasol was evaluated in experimental Lassa fever in monkeys which received these drugs at various intervals after the onset of the clinical illness. Ribamydil or virasol administered in the first day of fever protected from death 60% to 66% of the infected animals, but when the drugs were given 2 days after the onset of fever the number of survivors declined to 0.20%.

[Comparative evaluation of the antiviral efficacy of virazole and ribamidil in experimental Lassa fever in monkeys].

Lassa virus administered to monkeys aerogenically induced in these laboratory animals a fatal disease modelling the severe course of human Lassa fever. It was demonstrated experimentally that ribamydil, a Soviet analogue of virasol, as well as foreign commercial virasol was therapeutically effective in experimental Lassa fever in aerogenically infected monkeys.