Perspectives for the Therapy against Arenavirus Infections

Five arenaviruses are able to cause severe hemorrhagic fevers (HF) in humans, and two of them, Lassa virus and Junin virus generate periodic annual outbreaks of severe hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rate in West Africa and Argentina, respectively. This chapter describes the drawbacks of the present treatment of arenavirus HF, mainly based on the administration of immune plasma or the drug ribavirin, and the future perspectives for therapy, mainly focused on new possible targets in early and late stages of the replicative cycle, responsible of viral entry to the cell and virus maturation, assembly and budding, respectively.