Herpes simplex virus and SLE: Though uncommon yet with significant implications

Abstract

To the Editor,The relation between infectious agents, particularly viruses, with autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases, has been extensively studied during the last decades. Recently, the association was shown to be even stronger during the pandemic of COVID-19, as the causative virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been linked to severe autoimmune sequela in infected individuals. The concerned consequences in patients with COVID-19 were documented during the acute viral infection, throughout the long recovery phase (so-called post-COVID syndrome), as well as secondary to the vaccines of COVID-19. 1 Actually, the autoimmune nature of SARS-CoV-2 has been vastly reported in the medical literature and it is beyond the scope of our current paper. 2 However, it shows the strong bond between infection and autoimmunity. Subsequently, with a deep interest in the field, we analyzed the article of Chang et al. 3 concluding that there is no