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Comment by lebuffon | Hacker News Reader

And right next door, Canada is #1.

<rant> When you look at the geographic distribution of MS you would think there might be a pathogen involved. Clearly there are other factors (genetic, environment?) since not everybody gets it, but there is evidence on the map.

Modern DNA techniques should make it possible to search for a culprit but if you don't "believe" that a pathogen is a possibility you will never search for it.</rant>

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Yes there is probably a particular virus that’s involved. It is EBV, unfortunately a very common virus that can get reactivated by COVID-19. The picture only got clear this year and there are no great therapies or vaccines yet. In this study from earlier this year, the chance of active military developing MS was 32-times (3,200%) higher for people who had EBV vs those that had other common viruses: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222

Thanks for the link. This put me on notice that EBV might also be responsible for other neuralgic disorders since it hangs around forever. It also points to investigating the rest of the Herpes family IMHO.

If we could acknowledge/prove that some of these viruses are dangerous long after initial infection, it might prompt the development of an EBV vaccine. Not sure if Herpes would respond to vaccines. Put it on the list with Human Leukemia/Lymphotropic virus Type 1.

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