Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis: promising results with intraventricular interferon alpha 2b therapy and intraventricular ribavarin therapy

Abstract

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a devastating 'slow virus' disease of childhood and adolescence caused due to persistence of defective measles virus (MV) within the neurons and glial cells. Three drugs, i.e., inosiplex, ribavirin and interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) were reported to be effective though none of them have been proven to be curative.