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

Abstract

To the Editor,The relation between infectious agents, particularly viruses, withautoimmunity and autoimmune diseases, has been extensivelystudied during the last decades. Recently, the association was shownto be even stronger during the pandemic of COVID‐19, as thecausative virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has been linked to severe autoimmune sequela ininfected individuals. The concerned consequences in patients withCOVID‐19 were documented during the acute viral infection,throughout the long recovery phase (so‐called post‐COVID syn-drome), as well as secondary to the vaccines of COVID‐19.1Actually,the autoimmune nature of SARS‐CoV‐2 has been vastly reported inthe medical literature and it is beyond the scope of our currentpaper.2However, it shows the strong bond between infection andautoimmunity. Subsequently, with a deep interest in the field, weanalyzed the article of Chang et al.3concluding that there is nocorrelation between herpes simplex viral infections and systemiclupus erythematosus (SLE) in terms of causality using Mendelian randomization.