Safety and pharmacokinetics of ribavirin for the treatment of la crosse encephalitis.

Background: La Crosse viral encephalitis (LACVE) is associated with residual epilepsy and neurocognitive deficits in survivors. This report summarizes 3 phases of clinical studies of children treated with intravenous (IV) ribavirin (RBV), each one exploring a different phase (I, IIA, IIB) of clinical trial development.

Methods: In phase I, 7 children with life-threatening LACVE were treated with emergency use RBV using a moderate IV dose (8.